10-
" They that Walk in Darkness
"They that Walk in
Darkness 5
GHETTO TRAGEDIES
BY
I. ZANGWILL
AUTHOR OF "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO"
"THE KING OF SCHNORRERS," ETC.
WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE AFTER
A PICTURE BY LOUIS LOEB
PHILADELPHIA
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY I. ZANGWILL.
NortonoO
3. S. Cuihing & Co. — Berwick * Smith
Norwood Man. U.S.A.
PREFACE
THE " Ghetto Tragedies " collected in a little vol-
ume in 1893 have been so submerged in the present
collection that I have relegated the original name
to the sub-title. " Satan Mekatrig " was written in
1889, "Bethulah" this year. Anyone who should
wish to measure the progress or decay of my imagi-
nation during the ten years has therefore materials
to hand. " Noah's Ark " stands on the firmer Ara-
rat of history, my invention being confined to the
figure of Peloni (the Hebrew for " nobody "). The
other stories have also a basis in life. But neither in
pathos nor heroic stimulation can they vie with the
literal tragedy with which the whole book is in a
sense involved. Mrs. N. S. Joseph, the great-hearted
lady to whom " Ghetto Tragedies " was inscribed,
herself walked in darkness, yet was not dismayed : in
the prime of life she went down into the valley of
the shadow, with no word save of consideration for
others. I trust the new stories would not have been
disapproved by my friend, to whose memory they
must now, alas ! be dedicated.
I. Z.
OCTOBER, 1899.
CONTENTS
i
PAGE
THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" . . . i
II
TRANSITIONAL . 41
III
NOAH'S ARK 79
IV
THE LAND OF PROMISE 127
V
To DIE IN JERUSALEM 159
VI
BETHULAH 185
VII
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 249
VIII
SATAN MEKATRIG 345
vii
viii CONTENTS
IX
PAGE
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 4°3
X
INCURABLE 457
XI
THE SABBATH-BREAKER 479
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
IT was not till she had fasted every Monday and
Thursday for a twelvemonth, that Zillah's long
yearning for a child was gratified. She gave birth
— O more than fair-dealing God ! — to a boy.
Jossel, who had years ago abandoned the hope
of an heir to pray for his soul, was as delighted as
he was astonished. His wife had kept him in igno-
rance of the fasts by which she was appealing to
Heaven ; and when of a Monday or Thursday even-
ing on his return from his boot factory in Bethnal
Green, he had sat down to his dinner in Dalston,
no suspicion had crossed his mind that it was Zillah's
breakfast. He himself was a prosaic person, in-
capable of imagining such spontaneities of religion,
though he kept every fast which it behoves an ortho-
dox Jew to endure who makes no speciality of saint-
hood. There was a touch of the fantastic in Zillah's
character which he had only appreciated in its mani-
festation as girlish liveliness, and which Zillah knew
would find no response from him in its religious
expression.
1
2 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
Not that her spiritual innovations were original
inventions. From some pious old crone, after whom
(as she could read Hebrew) a cluster of neighbouring
dames repeated what they could catch of the New
Year prayers in the women's synagogue, Zillah had
learnt that certain holy men were accustomed to
afflict their souls on Mondays and Thursdays. From
her unsuspecting husband himself she had further
elicited that these days were marked out from the
ordinary, even for the man of the world, by a special
prayer dubbed " the long ' He being merciful.' '
Surely on Mondays and Thursdays, then, He would
indeed be merciful. To make sure of His good-will
she continued to be unmerciful to herself long after
it became certain that her prayer had been granted.
II
Both Zillah and Jossel lived in happy ignorance of
most things, especially of their ignorance. The man-
ufacture of boots and all that appertained thereto, the
synagogue and religion, misunderstood reminiscences
of early days in Russia, the doinjs and misdoings of
a petty social circle, and such particular narrowness
with general muddle as is produced by stumbling
through a Sabbath paper and a Sunday paper : these
were the main items in their intellectual inventory.
Separate Zillah from her husband and she became
even poorer, for she could not read at all.
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 3
Yet they prospered. The pavements of the East
End resounded with their hob-nailed boots, and even
in many a West End drawing-room their patent-
leather shoes creaked. But they themselves had no
wish to stand in such shoes ; the dingy perspectives
of Dalston villadom limited their ambition, already
sufficiently gratified by migration from Whitechapel.
The profits went to enlarge their factory and to buy
houses, a favourite form of investment in their set.
Zillah could cook fish to perfection, both fried and
stewed, and the latter variety both sweet and sour.
Nothing, in fine, had been wanting to their happi-
ness — save a son, heir, and mourner.
When he came at last, little that religion or su-
perstition could do for him was left undone. An
amulet on the bedpost scared off Lilith, Adam's
first wife, who, perhaps because she missed being
the mother of the human race, hankers after babes
and sucklings. The initiation into the Abrahamic
covenant was graced by a pious godfather with
pendent ear-locks, and in the ceremony of the Re-
demption of the First-Born the five silver shekels
to the priest were supplemented by golden sover-
eigns for the poor. Nor, though Zillah spoke the
passable English of her circle, did she fail to rock
her Brum's cradle to the old "Yiddish" nursery-
songs : —
"Sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes,
O sleep, my little one ;
4 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
Too soon from cradle you'll arise
To work that must be done.
"Almonds and raisins you shall sell,
And holy scrolls shall write ;
So sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well,
Your future beckons bright.
"Brum shall learn of ancient days,
And love good folk of this ;
So sleep, dear babe, your mother prays,
And God will send you bliss."
Alas, that with all this, Brum should have grown
up a weakling, sickly and anaemic, with a look that
in the child of poorer parents would have said star-
vation.
Ill
Yet through all the vicissitudes of his infantile
career, Zillah's faith in his survival never faltered.
He was emphatically a child from Heaven, and
Providence would surely not fly in its own face.
Jossel, not being aware of this, had a burden of
perpetual solicitude, which Zillah often itched to
lighten. Only, not having done so at first, she
found it more and more difficult to confess her ne-
gotiation with the celestial powers. She went as
near as she dared.
"If the Highest One has sent us a son after so
many years," she said in the " Yiddish " which was
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 6
still natural to her for intimate domestic discussion,
" He will not take him away again."
"As well say," Jossel replied gloomily, "that be-
cause He has sent us luck and blessing after all
these years, He may not take away our prosperity."
"Hush! don't beshrew the child!" And Zillah
spat out carefully. She was tremulously afraid of
words of ill-omen and of the Evil Eye, against which,
she felt vaguely, even Heaven's protection was not
potent. Secretly she became more and more con-
vinced that some woman, envious of all this " luck and
blessing," was withering Brum with her Evil Eye.
And certainly the poor child was peaking and pining
away. " Marasmus," a physician had once mur-
mured, wondering that so well dressed a child should
appear so ill nourished. "Take him to the seaside
often, and feed him well," was the universal cry of
the doctors ; and so Zillah often deserted her hus-
band for a kosher boarding-house at Brighton
or Ramsgate, where the food was voluminous, and
where Brum wrote schoolboy verses to the strange,
fascinating sea.
For there were compensations in the premature
flowering of his intellect. Even other mothers grad-
ually came round to admitting he was a prodigy.
The black eyes seemed to burn in the white face as
they looked out on the palpitating universe, or de-
voured every and any scrap of print! A pity they
had so soon to be dulled behind spectacles. But
6 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
Zillah found consolation in the thought that the
glasses would go well with the high black waistcoat
and white tie of the British Rabbi. He had been
given to her by Heaven, and to Heaven must be
returned. Besides, that might divert it from any
more sinister methods of taking him back.
In his twelfth year Brum began to have more
trouble with his eyes, and renewed his early acquain-
tance with the drab ante-rooms of eye hospitals that
led, at the long-expected ting-ting of the doctor's-
bell, into a delectable chamber of quaint instruments.
But it was not till he was on the point of Bar-Mitzvah
(confirmation at thirteen) that the blow fell. Un-
warned explicitly by any physician, Brum went blind.
"Oh, mother," was his first anguished cry, "I
shall never be able to read again."
IV
The prepared festivities added ironic complications
to the horror. After Brum should have read in the
Law from the synagogue platform, there was to have
been a reception at the house. Brum himself had
written out the invitations with conscious grammar.
" Present their compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Solomon
and shall be glad to see them " (not you, as was the
fashion of their set). It was after writing out so
many notes in a fine schoolboy hand, that Brum be-
gan to be conscious of thickening blurs and dancing
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 7
specks and colours. Now that the blind boy was
crouching in hopeless misery by the glowing fire,
where he had so often recklessly pored over books
in the delicious dusk, there was no one handy to
write out the countermands. As yet the wretched
parents had kept the catastrophe secret, as though
it reflected on themselves. And by every post the
Confirmation presents came pouring in.
Drum refused even to feel these shining objects.
He had hoped to have a majority of books, but now
the preponderance of watches, rings, and penknives,
left him apathetic. To his parents each present
brought a fresh feeling of dishonesty.
" We must let them know," they kept saying.
But the tiny difficulty of writing to so many pre-
vented action.
"Perhaps he'll be all right by Sabbath," Zillah
persisted frenziedly. She clung to the faith that this
was but a cloud : for that the glory of the Confirma-
tion of a future Rabbi could be so dimmed would
argue an incomprehensible Providence. Brum's per-
formance was to be so splendid — he was to recite
not only his own portion of the Law but the entire
Sabbath Sedrah (section).
" He will never be all right," said Jossel, who, in
the utter breakdown of Zillah, had for the first time
made the round of the doctors with Brum. " None
of the physicians, not even the most expensive, hold
out any hope. And the dearest of all said the case
8 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
puzzled him. It was like the blindness that often
breaks out in Russia after the great fasts, and spe-
cially affects delicate children."
"Yes, I remember," said Zillah; "but that was
only among the Christians."
"We have so many Christian customs nowadays,"
said Jossel grimly; and he thought of the pestilent
heretic in his own synagogue who advocated that
ladies should be added to the choir.
"Then what shall we do about the people?"
moaned Zillah, wringing her hands in temporary
discouragement.
" You can advertise in the Jewish papers," came
suddenly from the brooding Brum. He had a flash
of pleasure in the thought of composing something
that would be published.
" Yes, then everybody will read it on the Friday,"
said Jossel eagerly.
Then Brum remembered that he would not 'be
among the readers, and despair reconquered him.
But Zillah was shaking her head.
"Yes, but if we tell people not to come, and
then when Brum opens his eyes on the Sabbath
morning, he can see to read the Sedrah — "
"But I don't want to see to read the Sedrah"
said the boy petulantly ; " I know it all by heart."
" My blessed boy ! " cried Zillah.
" There's nothing wonderful," said the boy ; "even
if you read the scroll, there are no vowels nor musical
signs."
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 9
" But do you feel strong enough to do it all? " said
the father anxiously.
" God will give him strength," put in the mother.
" And he will make his speech, too, won't you, my
Brum ? "
The blind face kindled. Yes, he would give his
learned address. He had saved his father the ex-
pense of hiring one, and had departed in original
rhetorical ways from the conventional methods of
expressing filial gratitude to the parents who had
brought him to manhood. And was this elo-
quence to remain entombed in his own breast ?
His courageous resolution lightened the gloom.
His parents opened parcels they had not had the
heart to touch. They brought him his new suit,
they placed the high hat of manhood on his head,
and told him how fine and tall he looked ; they
wrapped the new silk praying-shawl round his
shoulders.
" Are the stripes blue or black ? " he asked.
"Blue — a beautiful blue," said Jossel, striving to
steady his voice.
" It feels very nice," said Brum, smoothing the
silk wistfully. "Yes, I can almost feel the blue."
Later on, when his father, a little brightened, had
gone off to the exigent boot factory, Brum even
asked to see the presents. The blind retain these
visual phrases.
Zillah described them to him one by one as he
10 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
handled them. When it came to the books it
dawned on her that she could not tell him the
titles.
" They have such beautiful pictures," she gushed
evasively.
The boy burst into tears.
"Yes, but I shall never be able to read them," he
sobbed.
" Yes, you will."
" No, I won't."
" Then I'll read them to you," she cried, with
sudden resolution.
" But you can't read."
" I can learn."
" But you will be so long. I ought to have taught
you myself. And now it is too late ! "
In order to insure perfection, and prevent stage
fright, so to speak, it had been arranged that Brum
should rehearse his reading of the Sedrak on Fri-
day in the synagogue itself, at an hour when it was
free from worshippers. This rehearsal, his mother
thought, was now all the more necessary to screw up
Brum's confidence, but the father argued that as all
places were now alike to the blind boy, the prom-
inence of a public platform and a large staring
audience could no longer unnerve him.
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 11
" But he will fee! them there ! " Zillah protested.
"But since they are not there on the Friday — ? "
" All the more reason. Since he cannot see that
they are not there, he can fancy they are there. On
Saturday he will be quite used to them."
But when Jossel, yielding, brought Brum to the
synagogue appointment, the fusty old Beadle who
was faithfully in attendance held up his hands in
holy and secular horror at the blasphemy and the
blindness respectively.
"A blind man may not read the Law to the con-
gregation ! " he explained.
" No ? " said Jossel.
" Why not ? " asked Brum sharply.
" Because it stands that the Law shall be read.
And a blind man cannot read. He can only recite."
" But I know every word of it," protested Brum.
The Beadle shook his head. " But suppose you
make a mistake ! Shall the congregation hear a
word or a syllable that God did not write ? It would
be playing into Satan's hands."
" I shall say every word as God wrote it. Give
me a trial."
But the fusty Beadle's piety was invincible. He was
highly sympathetic toward the human affliction, but
he refused to open the Ark and produce the Scroll.
" I'll let the Chazan (cantor) know he must read
to-morrow, as usual," he said conclusively.
12 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
Jossel went home, sighing, but silenced. Zillah
however, was not so easily subdued. " But my Brum
will read it as truly as an angel ! " she cried, pressing
the boy's head to her breast. "And suppose he
does make a mistake ! Haven't I heard the congre-
gation correct Winkelstein scores of times? "
"Hush!" said Jossel, "you talk like an Epicu-
rean. Satan makes us all err at times, but we must
not play into his hands. The Din (judgment) is that
only those who see may read the Law to the congre-
gation."
" Brum will read it much better than that snuffling
old Winkelstein."
" Sha ! Enough ! The Din is the Din ! "
" It was never meant to stop my poor Brum from — "
" The Din is the Din. It won't let you dance on
its head or chop wood on its back. Besides, the
synagogue refuses, so make an end."
" I will make an end. I'll have Minyan (congre-
gation) here, in our own house."
" What ! " and the poor man stared in amaze.
" Always she falls from heaven with a new idea ! "
" Brum shall not be disappointed." And she gave
the silent boy a passionate hug.
" But we have no Scroll of the Law," Brum said,
speaking at last, and to the point.
" Ah, that's you all over, Zillah," cried Jossel,
relieved, — " loud drumming in front and no soldiers
behind ! "
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 13
"We can borrow a Scroll," said Zillah.
Jossel gasped again, " But the iniquity is just the
same," he said.
" As if Brum made mistakes ! "
" If you were a Rabbi, the congregation would bap-
tize itself ! " Jossel quoted.
Zillah writhed under the proverb. " It isn't as
if you went to the Rabbi ; you took the word of the
Beadle."
" He is a learned man."
Zillah donned her bonnet and shawl.
" Where are you going ? "
"To the minister."
Jossel shrugged his shoulders, but did not stop
her.
The minister, one of the new school of Rabbis
who preach sermons in English and dress like Chris-
tian clergymen, as befitted the dignity of Dalston
villadom, was taken aback by the ritual problem, so
new and so tragic. His acquaintance with the vast
casuistic literature of his race was of the shallowest.
" No doubt the Beadle is right," he observed pro-
foundly.
" He cannot be right; he doesn't know my Brum."
Worn out by Zillah's persistency, the minister
suggested going to the Beadle's together. Aware
of the Beadle's prodigious lore, he had too much
regard for his own position to risk congregational
odium by flying in the face of an exhumable Din.
14 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
At the Beadle's, the Din was duly unearthed from
worm-eaten folios, but Zillah remaining unappeased,
further searching of these Rabbinic scriptures re-
vealed a possible compromise.
If the portion the boy recited was read over again
by a reader not blind, so that the first congregational
reading did not count, it might perhaps be permitted.
It would be of course too tedious to treat the whole
Sedrah thus, but if Brum were content to recite his
own particular seventh thereof, he should be sum-
moned to the Rostrum.
So Zillah returned to Jossel, sufficiently trium-
phant.
VI
" Abraham, the son of Jossel, shall stand."
In obedience to the Cantor's summons, the blind
boy, in his high hat and silken praying-shawl with the
blue stripes, rose, and guided by his father's hand as-
cended the platform, amid the emotion of the syna-
gogue. His brave boyish treble, pursuing its faultless
way, thrilled the listeners to tears, and inflamed Zillah 's
breast, as she craned -down from the gallery, with the
mad hope that the miracle had happened, after all.
The house-gathering afterward savoured of the grew-
some conviviality of a funeral assemblage. But the
praises of Brum, especially after his great speech,
were sung more honestly than those of the buried ;
than whom the white-faced dull-eyed boy, cut off from
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 15
the gaily coloured spectacle in the sunlit room, was a
more tragic figure.
But Zillah, in her fineries and forced smiles, offered
the most tragic image of all. Every congratulation
was a rose-wreathed dagger, every eulogy of Brum's
eloquence a reminder of the Rabbi God had thrown
away in him.
VII
Amid the endless babble of suggestions made to
her for Brum's cure, one — repeated several times by
different persons — hooked itself to her distracted
brain. Germany ! There was a great eye-doctor in
Germany, who could do anything and everything.
Yes, she would go to Germany.
This resolution, at which Jossel shrugged his
shoulders in despairing scepticism, was received with
rapture by Brum. How he had longed to see foreign
countries, to pass over that shining sea which whis-
pered and beckoned so, at Brighton and Ramsgate !
He almost forgot he would not see Germany, unless
the eye-doctor were a miracle-monger indeed.
But he was doomed to a double disappointment ; for
instead of his going to Germany, Germany came to
him, so to speak, in the shape of the specialist's
annual visit to London ; and the great man had
nothing soothing to say, only a compassionate head
to shake, with ominous warnings to make the best of
a bad job and fatten up the poor boy .
16 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
Nor did Zillah's attempts to read take her out of
the infant primers, despite long hours of knitted brow
and puckered lips, and laborious triumphs over the
childish sentences, by patient addition of syllable to
syllable. She also tried to write, but got no further
than her own name, imitated from the envelopes.
To occupy Brum's days, Jossel, gaining enlighten-
ment in the ways of darkness, procured Braille books.
But the boy had read most of the stock works thus
printed for the blind, and his impatient brain fretted
at the tardiness of finger-reading. Jossel's one conso-
lation was that the boy would not have to earn his
living. The thought, however, of how his blind
heir would be cheated by agents and rent-collectors
was a touch of bitter even in this solitary sweet.
VIII
It was the Sabbath Fire- Worn an who, appropriately
enough, kindled the next glimmer of hope in Zillah's
bosom. The one maid-of-all-work, who had supplied
all the help and grandeur Zillah needed in her estab-
lishment, having transferred her services to a husband,
Zillah was left searching for an angel at thirteen
pounds a year. In the interim the old Irishwoman
who made a few pence a week by attending to the
Sabbath fires of the poor Jews of the neighbourhood,
became necessary on Friday nights and Saturdays, to
save the household from cold or sin.
"THEY THAJ^ WALK IN DARKNESS" 17
"Och, the quare little brat!" she muttered, when
she first came upon the pale, gnome-like figure by
the fender, tapping the big book, for all the world
like the Leprechaun cobbling.
" And can't he see at all, at all ? " she asked Zillah
confidentially one Sabbath, when the boy was out of
the room.
Zillah shook her head, unable to speak.
"Nebbick!" compassionately sighed the Fire-
Woman, who had corrupted her native brogue with
''Yiddish." " And wud he be borrun dark ? "
" No, it came only a few months ago," faltered
Zillah.
The Fire- Woman crossed herself.
" Sure, and who'll have been puttin' the Evil Oi on
him? " she asked.
Zillah's face was convulsed.
" I always said so ! " she cried ; " I always said
so ! "
"The divil burrun thim all!" cried the Fire-
Woman, poking the coals viciously.
" Yes, but I don't know who it is. They envied
me my beautiful child, my lamb, my only one. And
nothing can be done." She burst into tears.
" Nothin' is a harrd wurrd ! If he was my bhoy,
the darlint, I'd cure him, aisy enough, so I wud."
Zillah's sobs ceased. " How ? " she asked, her
eyes gleaming strangely.
" I'd take him to the Pope, av course."
18 UTHEY THAT WALK L\ DARKNESS"
"The Pope ! " repeated Zillah vaguely.
"Ay, the Holy Father! The ownly man in this
wurruld that can take away the Evil Oi."
Zillah gasped. " Do you mean the Pope of
Rome ? "
She knew the phrase somehow, but what it con-
noted was very shadowy and sinister : some strange,
mighty chief of hostile heathendom.
" Who else wud I be manin' ? The Holy Mother
I'd be for prayin' to meself ; but as ye're a Jewess,
I dursn't tell ye to do that. But the Pope, he's a
gintleman, an' so he is, an' sorra a bit he'll moind
that ye don't go to mass, whin he shpies that poor,
weeshy, pale shrimp o' yours. He'll just wave his
hand, shpake a wurrd, an' whisht ! in the twinklin'
of a bedposht ye'll be praisin' the Holy Mother."
Zillah's brain was whirling. " Go to Rome ! " she
said.
The Fire-Woman poised the poker.
"Well, ye can't expect the Pope to come to
Dalston ! "
" No, no ; I don't mean that," said Zillah, in hasty
apology. "Only it's so far off, and I shouldn't
know how to go."
" It's not so far off as Ameriky, an' it's two broths
of bhoys I've got there."
"Isn't it?" asked Zillah.
' No, Lord love ye : an' sure gold carries ye any-
where nowadays, ixcept to Heaven."
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 19
" But if I got to Rome, would the Pope see the
child ? "
" As sartin as the child wud see him," the Fire-
Woman replied emphatically.
" He can do miracles, then ? " inquired Zillah.
"What else wud he be for? Not that 'tis much of
a miracle to take away the Evil Oi, bad scran to the
witch ! "
"Then perhaps our Rabbi can do it, too?" cried
Zillah, with a sudden hope.
The Fire- Woman shook her head. " Did ye ever
hear he could ? "
" No," admitted Zillah.
"Thrue for you, mum. Divil a wurrd wud I say
aginst your Priesht — wan's as good as another,
maybe, for ivery-day use ; but whin it comes to
throuble and heart-scaldin', I pity the poor craythurs
who can't put up a candle to the blessed saints — an'
so I do. Niver a bhoy o' mine has crassed the ocean
without the Virgin havin' her candle."
"And did they arrive safe ? "
" They did so ; ivery mother's son av 'em."
IX
The more the distracted mother pondered over
this sensational suggestion, the more it tugged at
her. Science and Judaism had failed her : perhaps
this unknown power, this heathen Pope, had indeed
20 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
mastery over things diabolical. Perhaps the strange
religion he professed had verily a saving efficacy
denied to her own. Why should she not go to
Rome ?
True, the journey loomed before her as fearfully
as a Polar Expedition to an ordinary mortal. Ger-
many she had been prepared to set out for : it lay
on the great route of Jewish migration westwards.
But Rome ? She did not even know where it was.
But her new skill in reading would, she felt, help
her through the perils. She would be able to make
out the names of the railway stations, if the train
waited long enough.
But with the cunning of the distracted she did not
betray her heretical ferment.
" P — o — p — e, Pope," she spelt out of her infants'
primer in Brum's hearing. " Pope ? What's that,
Brum?"
" Oh, haven't you ever heard of the Pope,
mother ? "
" No," said Zillah, crimsoning in conscious invisi-
bility.
" He's a sort of Chief Rabbi of the Roman Catho-
lics. He wears a tiara. Kings and emperors used
to tremble before him."
"And don't they now?" she asked apprehensively.
" No; that was in the Middle Ages — hundreds of
years ago. He only had power over the Dark
Ages."
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 21
"Over the Dark Ages?" repeated Zillah, with a
fresh, vague hope.
" When all the world was sunk in superstition and
ignorance, mother. Then everybody believed in
him."
Zillah felt chilled and rebuked. " Then he no
longer works miracles ? " she said faintly.
Brum laughed. " Oh, I daresay he works as many
miracles as ever. Of course thousands of pilgrims
still go to kiss his toe. I meant his temporal power
is gone — that is, his earthly power. He doesn't
rule over any countries ; all he possesses is the
Vatican, but that is full of the greatest pictures by
Michael Angelo and Raphael."
Zillah gazed open-mouthed at the prodigy she had
brought into the world.
"Raphael — that sounds Jewish," she murmured.
She longed to ask in what country Rome was, but
feared to betray herself.
Brum laughed again. " Raphael Jewish ! Why
— so it is! It's a Hebrew word meaning 'God's
healing.' "
" God's healing ! " repeated Zillah, awestruck.
Her mind was made up.
X
" Knowest thou what, Jossel?" she said in "Yid-
dish," as they sat by the Friday-night fireside when
22 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
Brum had been put to bed. " I have heard of a new
doctor, better than all the others ! " After all it was
the doctor, the healer, the exorcist of the Evil Eye,
that she was seeking in the Pope, not the Rabbi of
an alien religion.
Jossel shook his head. " You will only throw more
money away."
" Better than throwing hope away."
" Well, who is it now ? "
" He lives far away."
" In Germany, again ? "
" No, in Rome."
" In Rome ? Why, that's at the end of the world
— in Italy ! "
" I know it's in Italy ! " said Zillah, rejoiced at the
information. " But what then ? If organ-grinders
can travel the distance, why can't I ? "
" But you can't speak Italian ! "
" And they can't speak English ! "
" Madness ! Work, but not wisdom ! I could not
trust you alone in such a strange country, and the
season is too busy for me to leave the factory."
" I don't need you with me," she said, vastly re-
lieved. " Brum will be with me."
He stared at her. " Brum ! "
" Brum knows everything. Believe me, Jossel, in
two days he will speak Italian."
" Let be ! Let be ! Let me rest ! "
" And on the way back he will be able to see ! He
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 23
will show me everything, and Mr. Raphael's pictures.
' God's healing,' " she murmured to herself.
" But you'd be away for Passover ! Enough ! "
" No, we shall be easily back by Passover."
" O these women ! The Almighty could not have
rested on the seventh day if he had not left woman
still uncreated."
" You don't care whether Brum lives or dies ! "
Zillah burst into sobs.
" It is just because I do that I ask how are you
going to live on the journey ? And there are no
kosher hotels in Italy."
"We shall manage on eggs and fish. God will
forgive us if the hotel plates are unclean."
" But you won't be properly nourished without
meat."
" Nonsense ; when we were poor we had to do
without it." To herself she thought, " If he only
knew I did without food altogether on Mondays and
Thursdays!"
XI
And so Brum passed at last over the shining,
wonderful sea, feeling only the wind on his forehead
and the salt in his nostrils. It was a beautiful day
at the dawn of spring ; the far-stretching sea sparkled
with molten diamonds, and Zillah felt that the highest
God's blessing rested like a blue sky over this strange
pilgrimage. She was dressed with great taste, and
24 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
few would have divined the ignorance under her
silks.
" Mother, can you see France yet ? " Brum asked
very soon.
"No, my lamb."
" Mother, can you see France yet ? " he persisted
later.
" I see white cliffs," she said at last.
" Ah ! that's only the white cliffs of Old England.
Look the other way."
" I am looking the other way. I see white cliffs
coming to meet us."
" Has France got white cliffs, too ? " cried Brum,
disappointed.
On the journey to Paris he wearied her to describe
France. In vain she tried : her untrained vision
and poor vocabulary could give him no new elements
to weave into a mental picture. There were trees
and sometimes houses and churches. And again
trees. What kind of trees ? Green ! Brum was in
despair. France was, then, only like England ; white
cliffs without, trees and houses within. He demanded
the Seine at least.
"Yes, I see a great water," his mother admitted
at last.
"That's it! It rises in the Cote d'Or, flows
N. N. W. then W., and N. W. into the English
Channel. It is more than twice as long as the
Thames. Perhaps you'll see the tributaries flowing
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 25
into it — the little rivers, the Oise, the Marne, the
Yonne."
" No wonder the angels envy me him ! " thought
Zillah proudly.
They halted at Paris, putting up for the night, by
the advice of a friendly fellow-traveller, at a hotel
by the Gare de Lyon, where, to Zillah's joy and
amazement, everybody spoke English to her and
accepted her English gold — a pleasant experience
which was destined to be renewed at each stage, and
which increased her hope of a happy issue.
" How loud Paris sounds ! " said Brum, as they
drove across it. He had to construct it from its
noises, for in answer to his feverish interrogations
his mother could only explain that some streets were
lined with trees and some foolish unrespectable
people sat out in the cold air, drinking at little
tables.
" Oh, how jolly ! " said Brum. " But can't you see
Notre Dame?"
" What's that ?"
" A splendid cathedral, mother — very old. Do
look for two towers. We must go there the first
thing to-morrow."
" The first thing to-morrow we take the train.
The quicker we get to the doctor, the better."
" Oh, but we can't leave Paris without seeing
Notre Dame, and the gargoyles, and perhaps Quasi-
modo, and all that Victor Hugo describes. I wonder
26 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
if we shall see a devil-fish in Italy," he added
irrelevantly.
" You'll see the devil if you go to such places,"
said Zillah, who, besides shirking the labor of de-
scription, was anxious not to provoke unnecessarily
the God of Israel.
" But I've often been to St. Paul's with the boys,"
said Brum.
" Have you ? " She was vaguely alarmed.
"Yes, it's lovely — the stained windows and the
organ. Yes, and the Abbey's glorious, too ; it almost
makes me cry. I always liked to hear the music
with my eyes shut," he added, with forced cheeriness,
"and now that'll be all right."
" But your father wouldn't like it," said Zillah
feebly.
" Father wouldn't like me to read the Pilgrim's
Progress" retorted Brum. " He doesn't understand
these things. There's no harm in our going to Notre
Dame."
" No, no ; it'll be much better to save all these
places for the way back, when you'll be able to see
for yourself."
Too late it struck her she had missed an opportunity
of breaking to Brum the real object of the expedition.
"But the Seine, anyhow!" he persisted. "We
can go there to-night."
"But what can you see at night?" cried Zillah,
unthinkingly.
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 27
" Oh, mother ! how beautiful it used to be to look
over London Bridge at night when we came back
from the Crystal Palace ! "
In the end Zillah accepted the compromise, and
after their dinner of fish and vegetables — for which
Brum had scant appetite — they were confided by
the hotel porter to a bulbous-nosed cabman, who had
instructions to restore them to the hotel. Zillah
thought wistfully of her warm parlour in Dalston,
with the firelight reflected in the glass cases of the
wax flowers.
The cab stopped on a quay.
" Well ? " said Brum breathlessly.
" Little fool ! " said Zillah good-humouredly.
" There is nothing but water — the same water as
in London."
" But there are lights, aren't there ? "
"Yes, there are lights," she admitted cheerfully
" Where is the moon ? "
" Where she always is — in the sky."
" Doesn't she make a silver path on the water ? "
he said, with a sob in his voice.
" What are you crying at ? The mother didn't
mean to make you cry."
She strained him contritely to her bosom, and
kissed away his tears.
28 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
XII
The train for Switzerland started so early that
Brum had no time to say his morning prayers ; so,
the carriage being to themselves, he donned his phy-
lacteries and his praying-shawl with the blue stripes.
Zillah sat listening to the hour-long recitative with
admiration of his memory.
Early in the hour she interrupted him to say :
" How lucky I haven't to say all that ! I should get
tired."
"That's curious!" replied Brum. " I was just say-
ing, ' Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who hath
not made me a woman.' But a woman has to pray,
too, mother. Else why is there given a special form
for the women to substitute ? — ' Who hath made me
according to His will.' '
" Ah, that's only for learned women. Only
learned women pray."
"Well, you'd like to pray the Benediction that
comes next, mother, I know. Say it with me — do."
She repeated the Hebrew obediently, then asked :
" What does it mean ? "
" ' Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest
the eyes of the blind.' "
" Oh, my poor Brum ! Teach it me ! Say the
Hebrew again."
She repeated it till she could say it unprompted.
And then throughout the journey her lips moved
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 29
with it at odd times. It became a talisman — a
compromise with the God who had failed her.
" Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest
the eyes of the blind."
XIII
Mountains were the great sensation of the pas-
sage through Switzerland. Brum had never seen
a mountain, and the thought of being among the
highest mountains in Europe was thrilling. Even
Zillah's eyes could scarcely miss the mountains.
She painted them in broad strokes. But they did
not at all correspond to Brum's expectations of the
Alps.
" Don't you see glaciers ? " he asked anxiously.
" No," replied Zillah, but kept a sharp eye on the
windows of passing chalets till the boy discovered
that she was looking for glaziers at work.
" Great masses of ice," he explained, " sliding
down very slowly, and glittering like the bergs in
the Polar regions."
" No, I see none," she said, blushing.
" Ah ! wait till we come to Mont Blanc."
Mont Blanc was an obsession ; his geography was
not minute enough to know that the route did not
pass within sight of it. He had expected it to
dominate Switzerland as a cathedral spire dominates
a little town.
30 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
"Mont Blanc is 15,784 feet above the sea," he
said voluptuously. " Eternal snow is on its top, but
you will not see that, because it is above the clouds."
" It is, then, in Heaven," said Zillah.
"God is there," replied Brum gravely,, and burst
out with Coleridge's lines from his school-book : —
" • God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice !
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds !
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder God ! ' "
"Who openest the eyes of the blind," murmured
Zillah.
"There are five torrents rushing down, also,"
added Brum. " ' And you, ye five wild torrents
fiercely glad.' You'll recognize Mont Blanc by
that. Don't you see them yet, mother ? "
" Wait, I think I see them coming."
Presently she announced Mont Blanc definitely ;
described it with glaciers and torrents and its top
reaching to God.
Brum's face shone.
" Poor lamb ! I may as well give him Mont
Blanc," she thought tenderly.
XIV
Endless other quaint dialogues passed between
mother and son on that tedious and harassing jour-
ney southwards
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 31
"There'll be no more snow when we get to Italy,"
Brum explained. "Italy's the land of beauty —
always sunshine and blue sky. It's the country of
the old Gods — Venus, the goddess of beauty ; Juno,
with her peacocks ; Jupiter, with his thunderbolts,
and lots of others."
" But I thought the Pope was a Christian," said
Zillah.
" So he is. It was long ago, before people believed
in Christianity."
" But then they were all Jews."
" Oh no, mother. There were Pagan gods that
people used to believe in at Rome and in Greece.
In Greece, though, these gods changed their names."
" So ! " said Zillah scornfully ; " I suppose they
wanted to have a fresh chance. And what's become
of them now ? "
" They weren't ever there, not really."
" And yet people believed in them ? Is it possi-
ble ? " Zillah clucked her tongue with contemp-
tuous surprise. Then she murmured mechanically,
" ' Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest
the eyes of the blind.' "
" Well, and what do people believe in now ? The
Pope ! " Brum reminded her. "And yet he's not true."
Zillah's heart sank. " But he's really there," she
protested feebly.
" Oh yes, he's there, because pilgrims come from
all parts of the world to get his blessing."
32 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
Her hopes revived.
" But they wouldn't come unless he really did
them good."
" Well, if you argue like that, mother, you might
as well say we ought to believe in Christ."
" Hush ! hush ! " The forbidden word jarred on
Zillah. She felt chilled and silenced. She had to
call up the image of the Irish Fire- Woman to restore
herself to confidence. It was clear Brum must not
be told ; his unfaith might spoil all. No, the decep-
tion must be kept up till his eyes were opened — in
more than one sense.
XV
After Mont Blanc, Brum's great interest was the
leaning tower of Pisa. " It is one of the wonders of
the world," he said; "there are seven altogether."
" Yes, it is a wonderful world," said Zillah ; " I
never thought about it before."
And in truth Italy was beginning to touch sleep-
ing chords. The cypresses, the sunset on the moun-
tains, the white towns dozing on the hills under the
magical blue sky, — all these broad manifestations of
an obvious beauty, under the spur of Brum's inces-
sant interrogatory, began to penetrate. Nature in
unusual combinations spoke to her as its habitual
phenomena had never done. Her replies to Brum
did rough justice to Italy.
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 33
Florence recalled " Romola " to the boy. He told
his mother about Savonarola. " He was burnt! "
" What ! " cried Zillah. " Burn a Christian ! No
wonder, then, they burnt Jews. But why ? "
" He wanted the people to be good. All good
people suffer."
"Oh, nonsense, Brum ! It is the bad who suffer."
Then she looked at his wasted, white face, grown
thinner with the weariness of the long journey
through perpetual night, and wonder at her own
words struck her silent.
XVI
They arrived at last in the Eternal City, having
taken a final run of many hours without a break.
But the Pope was still to seek.
Leaving the exhausted Brum in bed, Zillah drove
the first morning to the Vatican, where Brum said he
lived, and asked to see him.
A glittering Swiss Guard stared blankly at her,
and directed her by dumb show to follow the stream
of people — the pilgrims, Zillah told herself. She
was made to scrawl her name, and, thanking God
that she had acquired that accomplishment, she
went softly up a gorgeous flight of steps, and past
awe-inspiring creatures in tufted helmets, into the
Sistine Chapel, where she wondered at people star-
ing ceilingwards through opera-glasses, or looking
34 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
downwards into little mirrors. Zillah also stared up
through the gloom till she had a crick in the neck,
but saw no sign of the Pope. She inquired of the
janitor whether he was the Pope, and realized that
English was, after all, not the universal language.
She returned gloomily to see after Brum, and to con-
sider her plan of campaign.
"The great doctor was not at home," she said.
"We must wait a little."
"And yet you made us hurry so through every-
thing," grumbled Brum.
Brum remained in bed while Zillah went to get
some lunch in the dining-room. A richly dressed old
lady who sat near her noticed that she was eating
Lenten fare, like herself, and, assuming her a fellow-
Catholic, spoke to her, in foreign-sounding English,
about the blind boy whose arrival she had observed.
Zillah asked her how one could get to see the
Pope, and the old lady told her it was very difficult.
"Ah, those blessed old times before 1870! — ah,
the splendid ceremonies in St. Peter's ! Do you
remember them ? "
Zillah shook her head. The old lady's assumption
of spiritual fellowship made her uneasy.
But St. Peter's stuck in her mind. Brum had
already told her it was the Pope's house of prayer.
Clearly, therefore, it was only necessary to loiter
about there with Brum to chance upon him and
extort his compassionate withdrawal of the spell of
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 36
the Evil Eye. With a culminating inspiration she
bought a photograph of the Pope, and overcoming
the first shock of hereditary repulsion at the sight of
the large pendent crucifix at his breast, she studied
carefully the Pontiff's face and the Papal robes.
Then, when Brum declared himself strong enough
to get up, they drove to St. Peter's, the instruction
being given quietly to the driver so that Brum should
not overhear it.
It was the first time Zillah had ever been in a
cathedral; and the vastness and glory of it swept
over her almost as a reassuring sense of a greater
God than she had worshipped in dingy synagogues.
She walked about solemnly, leading Brum by the
hand, her breast swelling with suppressed sobs of
hope. Her eyes roved everywhere, searching for
the Pope ; but at moments she well-nigh forgot her
disappointment at his absence in the wonder and
ghostly comfort of the great dim spaces, and the
mysterious twinkle of the countless lights before the
bronze canopy with its golden-flashing columns.
"Where are we, mother?" said Brum at last.
" We are waiting for the doctor."
" But where ? "
" In the waiting-room."
" It seems very large, mother."
" No, I am walking round and round."
" There is a strange smell, mother, — I don't know
what — something religious."
36 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
"Oh, nonsense ! " She laughed uneasily.
" I know what it smells like : cold marble pillars
and warm coloured windows."
Her blood froze at such uncanny sensibility.
" It is the smell of the medicines," she murmured.
Somehow his divination made it more difficult to con-
fess to him.
" It feels like being in St. Paul's or the Abbey,"
he persisted, " when I used to shut my eyes to hear
the organ better." He had scarcely ceased speaking,
when a soft, slow music began to thrill with life the
great stone spaces.
Brum's grasp tightened convulsively : a light leapt
into the blind face. Both came to a standstill, silent.
In Zillah's breast rapture made confusion more con-
founded ; and as this pealing grandeur, swelling more
passionately, uplifted her high as the mighty Dome,
she forgot everything — even the need of explana-
tion to Brum - — in this wonderful sense of a Power
that could heal, and her Hebrew benediction flowed
out into sobbing speech : —
" ' Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest
the eyes of the blind.' >:
But Brum had fainted, and hung heavy on her
arm.
XVII
When Brum awoke, in bed again, after his long
fainting-fit, he related with surprise his vivid dream
"THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 37
of St. Paul's, and Zillah weakly acquiesced in the
new deception, especially as the doctor warned her
against exciting the boy. But her hopes were
brighter than ever ; for the old lady had beneficently
appeared from behind a pillar in St. Peter's to offer
eau de Cologne for the unconscious Brum, and had
then, interesting herself in the couple, promised to
procure for her fellow-Catholics admission to the
next Papal reception. Being a very rich and fash-
ionable old lady, she kept her word ; but unfortu-
nately, when the day came round, Brum was terribly
low and forbidden to leave his bed.
Zillah was distracted. If she should miss the great
chance after all ! It might never recur again.
" Brum," she said at last, "this is the only day for
a long time that the great eye-doctor receives patients.
Do you think you could go, my lamb ? "
" Why won't he come here — like the other doctors ? ' '
" He is too great."
" Well, I daresay I can manage. It's miserable
lying in bed. Fancy coming to Rome and seeing
nothing ! "
With infinite care Brum was dressed and wrapped
up, and placed in a specially comfortable brougham ;
and thus at last mother and son stood waiting in one
of the ante-chambers of the Vatican, amid twenty
other pilgrims whispering in strange languages. Zil-
lah was radiantly assured : the mighty Power, what-
ever it was, that spoke in music and in mountains,
88 "THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS"
would never permit such weary journeyings and wait-
ings to end in the old darkness ; the malice of witches
could not prevail against this great spirit of sunshine.
For Brum, too, the long pilgrimage had enveloped
the doctor with a miraculous glamour as of an eighth
wonder of the world.
Drooping wearily on his mother's arm, but wrought
up to joyous anticipation, Brum had an undoubting
sense of the patient crowd around him waiting, as in
his old hospital days, for admission to the doctor's
sanctum. His ear was strung for the ting-ting of the
bell summoning the sufferers one by one.
At last a wave of awe swept over the little fashion-
able gathering, and set Zillah's heart thumping and
the room fading in mist, through which the tall,
venerable, robed figure, the eagle features softened
in benediction, gleamed like a god's. Then she
found herself on her knees, with Brum at her side,
and the wonderful figure passing between two rows
of reverent pilgrims.
" Why must I kneel, mother ? " murmured Brum
feebly.
"Hush! hush!" she whispered. "The great
doc — " she hesitated in awe of the venerable
figure — "the great healer is here."
"The great healer!" breathed Brum. His face
was transfigured with ecstatic forevision. "'Who
openeth the eyes of the blind,' " he murmured, as he
fell forward in death.
II
TRANSITIONAL
THE day came when old Daniel Peyser could no
longer withstand his wife's desire for a wider social
sphere and a horizon blacker with advancing bach-
elors. For there were seven daughters, and not a
man to the pack. Indeed, there had been only one
marriage in the whole Portsmouth congregation
during the last five years, and the Christian papers
had had reports of the novel ceremony, with the
ritual bathing of the bride and the breaking of the
glass under the bridegroom's heel. To Mrs. Peyser,
brought up amid the facile pairing of the Russian
pale, this congestion of celibacy approached im-
morality.
Portsmouth with its careless soldiers and sailors
might be an excellent town for pawnbroking, espe-
cially when one was not too punctiliously acceptant
of the ethics of the heathen, but as a market for
maidens — even with dowries and pretty faces — it
was hopeless. But it was not wholly as an emporium
for bachelors that London appealed. It was the
natural goal of the provincial Jew, the reward of his
41
42 TRANSITIONAL
industry. The best people had all drifted to the
mighty magic city, whose fascination survived even
cheap excursions to it.
Would father deny that they had now made
enough to warrant the migration ? No, father
would not deny it. Ever since he had left Germany
as a boy he had been saving money, and his surplus
he had shrewdly invested in the neighbouring soil of
Southsea, fast growing into a watering-place. Even
allowing three thousand pounds for each daughter's
dowry, he would still have a goodly estate.
Was there any social reason why they should not
cut as great a dash as the Benjamins or the Rosen-
weilers ? No, father would not deny that his girls
were prettier and more polished than the daughters
of these pioneers, especially when six of them
crowded around the stern granite figure, arguing,
imploring, cajoling, kissing.
" But I don't see why we should waste the money,"
he urged, with the cautious instincts of early poverty.
" Waste ! " and the pretty lips made reproachful
"Oh's!"
" Yes, waste ! " he retorted. " In India one treads
on diamonds and gold, but in London the land one
treads on costs diamonds and gold."
" But are we never to have a grandson ? " cried
Mrs. Peyser.
The Indian item was left unquestioned, so that
little Schnapsie, whose childish imagination was
TRANSITIONAL 43
greatly impressed by these eventful family debates,
had for years a vivid picture of picking her way with
bare feet over sharp-pointed diamonds and pebbly
gold. Indeed, long after she had learned to wonder
at her father's naYve geography the word "India"
always shone for her with barbaric splendour.
Environed by so much persistent femininity, the
rugged elderly toiler was at last nagged into accept-
ing a leisured life in London.
II
And so the family spread its wings joyfully and
migrated to the wonder-town. Only its head and
tail — old Daniel and little Schnapsie — felt the
least sentiment for the things left behind. Old
Daniel left the dingy synagogue to whose presidency
he had mounted with the fattening of his purse, and
in which he bought for himself, or those he delighted
to honour, the choicest privileges of ark-opening or
scroll-bearing ; left the cronies who dropped in to
play " Klabberjagd " on Sunday afternoons ; left the
bustling lucrative Saturday nights in the shop when
the heathen housewives came to redeem their Sab-
bath finery.
And little Schnapsie — who was only eleven, and
not keen about husbands — left the twinkling tarry
harbour, with its heroic hulks and modern men-of-war
amid which the half-penny steamer plied ; left the
44 TRANSITIONAL
great waves that smashed on the pebbly beach, and
the friendly moon that threw shimmering paths
across their tranquillity ; left the narrow lively streets
in which she had played, and the school in which
she had always headed her class, and the salt wind
that blew over all.
Little Schnapsie was only Schnapsie to her father.
Her real name was Florence. The four younger
girls all bore pagan names — Sylvia, Lily, Daisy,
Florence — symbolic of the influence upon the family
councils of the three elder girls, grown to years of
discretion and disgust with their own Leah, Rachael,
and Rebecca. Between these two strata of girls —
Jewish and pagan — two boys had intervened, but
their stay was brief and pitiful, so that all this pleth-
ora of progeny had not provided the father with a
male mourner to say the Kaddish. But it seemed
likely a grandson would not long be a-wanting, for
the eldest girl was twenty-five, and all were good-
looking. As if in irony, the Jewish group was blond,
almost Christian, in colouring (for they took after the
Teuton father), while the pagan group had charac-
teristically Oriental traits. In little Schnapsie these
Eastern charms — a whit heavy in her sisters — were
repeated in a key of exquisite refinement. The
thick black eyebrows and hair were soft as silk, dark
dreamy eyes suffused her oval face with poetry, and
her skin was like dead ivory flushing into life.
TRANSITIONAL 46
III '
The first year at Highbury, that genteel suburb
in the north of London, was an enchanted ecstasy
for the mother and the Jewish group of girls, taken
at once to the bosom of a great German clan, and
admitted to a new world of dances and dinners, of
" at homes " and theatres and card parties. The
eldest of the pagan group, Sylvia — tyrannically kept
young in the interests of her sisters — was the only
one who grumbled at the change, for Lily and Daisy
found sufficient gain in the prospect of replacing the
elder group when it should have passed away in an
odour of orange blossom. The scent of that was
always in the air, and Mrs. Peyser and her three
hopefuls sniffed it night and day.
" No, no ; Rebecca shall have him."
" Not me ! I am not going to marry a man with
carroty hair. Leah's the eldest; it's her turn first."
"Thank you, my dear. Don't give away what
you haven't got."
Every new young man who showed the faintest
signs of liking to drop in, provoked a similar semi-
facetious but also semi-serious canvassing — his per-
son, his income, and the girl to whom he should be
allotted supplying the sauce of every meal at which
he — or his fellow — was not present.
Thus, whether in the flesh or the spirit, the Young
Man — for so many of him appeared on the scene
46 TRANSITIONAL
that he hovered in the air rather as a type than an
individual — was a permanent guest at the Peyser
table.
But all this new domestic excitement did not com-
pensate little Schnapsie for her moonlit waters and
the strange ships that came and went with their
cargo of mystery.
And poor old Daniel found no cronies to appeal to
him like the old, nothing in the roar of London to
compensate for the Saturday night bustle of the
pawn-shop, no dingy little synagogue desirous of his
presidential pomp. He sat inconspicuously in a
handsome half-empty edifice, and knew himself
a superfluous atom in a vast lonely wilderness.
He was not, indeed, an imposing figure, with his
ragged graying whiskers and his boyish blue eyes.
In the street he had the stoop and shuffle of the
Ghetto, and forgot to hide his coarse red hands with
gloves ; in the house he persisted in wearing a pious
skull-cap. At first his more adaptable wife and his
English-bred daughters tried to fit him for decent
society, and to make him feel at home during their
" at homes." But he was soon relegated to the
background . of these brilliant social tableaux ; for
he was either too silent or too talkative, with old-
fashioned Jewish jokes which disconcerted the smart
young men, and with Hebrew quotations which they
could not even understand. And sometimes there
thrilled through the small-talk the trumpet-note of
TRANSITIONAL 47
his nose, as he blew it into a coloured handkerchief.
Gradually he was eliminated from the drawing-room
altogether.
But for some years longer he reigned supreme in
the dining-room — when there was no company.
Old habit kept the girls at table when he intoned
with noisy unction the Hebrew grace after meals ;
they even joined in the melodious morceaux that
diversified the plain-chant. But little by little their
contributions dwindled to silence. And when they
had smart company to dinner, the old man himself
was hushed by rows of blond and bugle eyebrows ;
especially after he had once or twice put young men
to shame by offering them the honour of reciting the
grace they did not know.
Daniel's prayer on such occasions was at length
reduced to a pious mumbling, which went un-
observed amid the joyous clatter of dessert, even as
his pious skull-cap passed as a preventive against
cold.
Last stage of all, the mumbling of his company
manners passed over into the domestic circle ; and
this humble whispering to God became symbolic of
his suppression.
*
IV
" I don't think he means Rachael at all."
" Oh, how can you say so, Leah ? It was me he
took down to supper."
48 TRANSITIONAL
" Nonsense ! it isn't either of you he's after ;
that's only his politeness to my sisters. Didn't he
say the bouquet was for me ? "
"Don't be silly, Rebecca. You know you can't
have him. The eldest must take precedence."
This changed tone indicated their humbler attitude
toward the Young Man as the years went by. For
the first young man did not propose, either to the
sisterhood en bloc or to a particular sister. And his
example was followed by his successors. In fact, a
procession of young men passed andrepassed through
the house, or danced with the girls at balls, without
a single application for any of these many hands.
And the first season passed into the second, and the
second into the third, with tantalizing mirages of
marriage. Balls, dances, dinners, a universe of
nebulous matrimonial matter on the whirl, but never
the shot-off star of an engagement ! Mrs. Peyser's
hair began to whiten faster. She even surreptitiously
called in the Shadchan, or rather surrendered to his
solicitations.
" Pooh ! Not find any one suitable ? " he declared,
rubbing his hands. " I have hundreds of young men
on my books, just your sort, real gentlemen."
At first the girls refused to consider applications
from such a source. It was not done in their set,
they said.
Mrs. Peyser snorted sceptically. " Oh, indeed !
and pray how did those Rosenweiler girls find
husbands ? "
TRANSITIONAL 49
" Oh, yes, the Rosenweilers ! " They shrugged
their shoulders ; they knew they had not that dis-
advantage of hideousness.
Nevertheless they lent an ear to the agent's sug-
gestions as filtered through the mother, though
under pretence of deriding them.
But the day came when even that pretence was
dropped, and with broken spirit they waited eagerly
for each new possibility. And with the passing of
the years the Young Man aged. He grew balder,
less gentlemanly, poorer.
Once indeed, he turned up as a handsome and
wealthy Christian, but this time it was he that was
rejected in a unanimous sisterly shudder. Five slow
years wore by, then of a sudden the luck changed,
A water-proof manufacturer on the sunny side of
forty appeared, the long glacial epoch was broken
up, and the first orange blossom ripened for the
Peyser household.
It was Rebecca, the youngest of the Jewish group,,
who proved the pioneer to the canopy, but her
marriage gave a new lease of youth even to the
oldest. And miraculously, mysteriously, within a
few months two other girls flew off Mrs. Peyser's
shoulders — a Jewish and a pagan — though Sylvia
was not yet formally "out."
And though Leah, the first born, still remained
unchosen, yet Sylvia's marriage to a Bayswater
household had raised the family status, and provided
50 TRANSITIONAL
a better field for operations. The Shadchan was
frozen off.
But he returned. For despite all these auguries
and auspices another arctic winter set in. No orange
blossoms, only desolate lichens of fruitless flirtation.
Gradually the pagan group pushed its way into
unconcealable womanhood. The problem darkened
all the horizon. The Young Man grew middle-aged
again. He lost all his money ; he wanted old Daniel
to set him up in business. Even this seemed better
than a barren fine ladyhood, and Leah might have
even harked back to the parental pawn-shop had not
another sudden epidemic of felicity married off all
save little Schnapsie within eighteen months. Mrs.
Peyser was knocked breathless by all these shocks.
First a rich German banker, then a prosperous solici-
tor (for Leah), then a Cape financier — any one in
himself catch enough to "gouge out the eyes " of the
neighbours.
" I told you so," she said, her portly bosom swell-
ing portlier with exultation as the sixth bride was
whirled off in a rice shower from the Highbury villa,
while the other five sat around in radiant matronhood.
" I told you to come to London."
Daniel pressed her hand in gratitude for all the
happiness she had given herself and the girls.
" If it were not for Florence," she went on wistfully.
" Ah, little Schnapsie ! " sighed Daniel. Somehow
he felt he would have preferred her hymeneal felicity
TRANSITIONAL 61
to all these marvellous marriages. For there had
grown up a strange sympathy between the poor lonely
old man, now nearly seventy, and his little girl, now
twenty-four. They never conversed except about
commonplaces, but somehow he felt that her presence
warmed the air. And she — she divined his solitude,
albeit ^imly ; had an intuition of what life had been
for him in the days before she was born : the long
days behind the counter, the risings in the gray dawn
to chant orisons and don phylacteries ere the pawn-
shop opened, the lengthy prayer and the swift supper
when the shutters were at last put up — all the bare
rock on which this floriage of prosperity had been
sown. And long after the others had dropped kiss-
ing him good-night, she would tender her lips, partly
because of the necessary domestic fiction that she was
still a baby, but also because she felt instinctively
that the kiss counted in his life.
Through all these years of sordid squabbles and
canvassings and weary waiting, all those endless
scenes of hysteria engendered by the mutual friction
of all that close-packed femininity, poor Schnapsie
had lived, shuddering. Sometimes a sense of the
pathos of it all, of the tragedy of women's lives, swept
over her. She regretted every inch she grew, it
seemed to shame her celibate sisters so. She clung
willingly to short skirts until she was of age, wore
her long raven hair in a plait with a red ribbon.
"Well, Florence," said Leah genially, when the
62 TRANSITIONAL
last outsider at Daisy's wedding had departed, " it's
your turn next. You'd better hurry up."
"Thank you," said Florence coldly. "I shall
take my own time ; fortunately there is no one be-
hind me."
" Humph ! " said Leah, playing with her diamond
rings. " It don't do to be too particular. Why don't
you come round and see me sometimes ? "
"There are so many of you now," murmured
Florence. She was not attracted by the solicitors
and traders in whose society and carriages her mother
lolled luxuriously, and she resented the matronly airs
of her sisters. With Leah, however, she was con-
scious of a different and more paradoxical provoca-
tion. Leah had an incredible air of juvenility. All
those unthinkable, innumerable years little Schnapsie
had conceived of her eldest sister as an old maid,
hopeless, senescent, despite the wonderful belt that
had kept her figure dashing ; but now that she was
married she had become the girlish bride, kittenish,
irresistible, while little Schnapsie was the old maid,
the sister in peril of being passed by. And indeed
she felt herself appallingly ancient, prematurely aged
by her long stay at seventeen.
"Yes, you are right, Leah," she said pensively,
with a touch of malice. " To-morrow I shall be
twenty-four."
" What ? " shrieked Leah.
"Yes," Florence said obstinately. "And oh, how
TRANSITIONAL 63
glad I shall be ! " She raised her arms exultingly
and stretched herself, as if shooting up seven years
as soon as the pressure of her sisters was removed.
" Do you hear, mother ? " whispered Leah. "That
fool of a Florence is going to celebrate her twenty-
fourth birthday. Not the slightest consideration for
us ! "
"I didn't say I would celebrate it publicly," said
Florence. " Besides," she suggested, smiling, " very
soon people will forget that I am not the eldest."
"Then your folly will recoil on your own head,"
said Leah.
Little Schnapsie gave a devil-may-care shrug — a
Ghetto trait that still clung to all the sisters.
"Yes," added Mrs. Peyser. "Think what it will
be in ten years' time ! "
" I shall be thirty-four," said Florence imper-
turbably. Another little smile lit up the dreamy
eyes. "Then I shall be the eldest."
" Madness ! " cried Mrs. Peyser, aloud, forgetting
that her daughters' husbands were about. " God
forbid I should live to see any girl of mine thirty-
four ! "
"Hush, mother!" said Florence quietly. "I
hope you will; indeed, I am sure you will, for I
shall never marry. So don't bother to put me on
the books — I'm not on the market. Good-night."
She sought out poor Daniel, who, awed by the
culture and standing of his five sons-in-law, not to
64 TRANSITIONAL
speak of the guests, was hanging about the de-
serted supper-room, smoking cigar after cigar, much
to the disgust of the caterer's men, who were wait-
ing to spirit away the box.
Having duly kissed her father, little Schnapsie
retired to bed to read Browning's love-poems. Her
mother had to take a glass of champagne to re-
store her ruffled nerves to the appropriate ecstasy.
V
Poor portly Mrs. Peyser was not destined to en-
joy her harvest of happiness for more than a few
years. But these years were an overbrimming cup,
with only the bitter drop of Florence's heretical
indifference to the Young Man. Environed by the
six households which she had begotten, Mrs. Pey-
ser breathed that atmosphere of ebullient babyhood
which was the breath of her Jewish nostrils ; babies
appeared almost every other month. It was a seeth-
ing well-spring of healthy life. Religious cere-
monies connected with these chubby new-comers,
or medical recipes for their bodily salvation, ab-
sorbed her. But her exuberant grandmotherliness
usually received a check in the summer, when the
babies were deported to scattered sea-shores ; and
thus it came to pass that the summer of her death
found her still lingering in London with a bad
cold, with only Daniel and little Schnapsie at
TRANSITIONAL 55
hand. And before the others could be called, Mrs.
Peyser passed away in peace, in the old Portsmouth
bed, overlooked by the old Hebrew picture exiled
from the London dining-room.
It was a curious end. She did not know she
was dying, but Daniel was anxious she should not
be reft into silence before she had made the im-
memorial proclamation of the Unity. At the same
time he hesitated to appall her with the grim
knowledge.
He was blubbering piteously, yet striving to hide
his sobs. The early days of his struggle came
back, the first weeks of wedded happiness, then
the long years of progressive prosperity and godly
cheerfulness in Portsmouth ere she had grown fash-
ionable and he unimportant ; and a vast self-pity
mingled with his pitiful sense of her excellencies
— the children she had borne him in agony, the
economy of her house management, the good bar-
gains she had driven with the clod-pated soldiers and
sailors, the later splendour of her social achievement.
And little Schnapsie wept with a sense of the
vanity of these dual existences to which she owed
her own empty life.
Suddenly Mrs. Peyser, over whose black eyes a
glaze had been stealing, let the long dark eye-
lashes fall over them.
" Sarah ! " whispered Daniel frantically. " Say
the Shemang ! "
56 TRANSITIONAL
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord
is one," said the sensuous lips obediently.
Little Schnapsie shrugged her shoulders rebel-
liously. The dogma seemed so irrelevant.
Mrs. Peyser opened her eyes, and a beautiful
mother-light came into them as she saw the weep-
ing girl.
"Ah, Florrie, do not fret," she said reassuringly,
in her long-lapsed Yiddish. " I will find thee a
bridegroom."
Her eyes closed, and little Schnapsie shuddered
with a weird image of a lover fetched from the
shrouded dead.
VI
After his Sarah had been lowered into "The
House of Life," and the excitement of the tomb-
stone recording her virtues had subsided, Daniel
would have withered away in an empty world but
for little Schnapsie. The two kept house together ;
the same big house that had reeked with so much
feminine life, and about which the odours of per-
fumes and powders still seemed to linger. But
father and daughter only met at meals. He spent
hours over the morning paper, with the old quaint
delusions about India and other things he read of,
and he pottered about the streets, or wandered into
the Beth-Hamidrash, which a local fanatic had just
instituted in North London, and in which, under
TRANSITIONAL 67
the guidance of a Polish sage, Daniel strove to
concentrate his aged wits on the ritual problems
of Babylon. At long intervals he brushed his old-
fashioned high hat carefully, and timidly rang the
bell of one of his daughters' mansions, and was
permitted to caress a loudly remonstrating baby ;
but they all lived so far from him and one another
in this mighty London. From Sylvia's, where there
was a boy with buttons, he had always been fright-
ened off, and when the others began to emulate
her, his visits ceased altogether. As for the sisters
coming to see him, all pleaded overwhelming do-
mestic duty, arid the frigidity of Florence's recep-
tion of them. " Now if you lived alone — or with
one of us ! " But somehow Daniel felt the latter
alternative would be as desolate as the former.
And though he knew some wide vague river flowed
between even his present housemate's life and his
own, yet he felt far more clearly the bridge of love
over which their souls passed to each other.
Figure then the septuagenarian's amaze when,
one fine morning, as he was shuffling about in his
carpet slippers, the servant brought him word that
his six daughters demanded his instantaneous pres-
ence in the drawing-room.
The shock drove out all thoughts of toilet ; his
heart beat quicker with a painful premonition of
he knew not what. This simultaneous visit re-
called funerals, weddings. He looked out of a
68 TRANSITIONAL
window and saw four carriages drawn up, and
that completed his sense of something elemental.
He tottered into the drawing-room — grown dingy
now that it had no more daughters to dispose of -
and shrank before the resplendence with which
their presence reinvested it. They rustled with
silks, shone with gold necklaces, and impregnated
the air with its ancient aroma of powders and per-
fumes. He felt himself dwindling before all this
pungent prosperity, like some more creative Frank-
enstein before a congress of his own monsters.
They did not rise as he entered. The Jewish
group and the pagan group were promiscuously
seated — marriage had broken down all the ancient
landmarks. They all looked about the same age-
lessness — a standstill buxom mafronhood.
Daniel stood at the door, glancing from one
to another. Some coughed ; others fidgeted with
muffs.
" Sit down, sit down, father," said Rachael kindly,
though she retained the arm-chair, — and there was
a general air of relief at her voice. But the old
embarrassment returned as the silence reestablished
itself when Daniel had drooped into a stiff chair.
At last Leah took the word : " We have come
while Florrie is at her slumming — "
" At her slumming ! " repeated Sylvia, with more
significance, and a meaning smile spread over the
six faces.
TRANSITIONAL 59
" Yes ? " Daniel murmured.
" — Because we did not want her to know of
our coming."
"It concerns Schnapsie ? " he murmured.
" Yes, your little Schnapsie," said Daisy viciously.
"Yes ; she has no time to come and see us," cried
Rebecca. "But she has plenty of time for her —
slumming"
"Well, she does good," he murmured apologetically.
" A fat lot of good ! " sniggered Rachael.
"To herself! " corrected Lily.
" I do not understand," he muttered uneasily.
" Well — " began Lily. " You tell him, Leah ; you
know more about it."
" You know as much as I do."
He looked appealingly from one to the other.
" I always said the slums were dangerous places
for people of our class," said Sylvia. " She doesn't
even confine herself to her own people."
The faces began to lighten — evidently they felt
the ice broken.
"Dangerous!" he repeated, catching at the omi-
nous word.
" Dreadful ! " in a common shudder.
He half rose. " You have bad news ? " he cried.
The faces gloomed over, the heads nodded.
" About Schnapsie ? " he shrieked, jumping up.
" Sit down, sit down ; she's not dead," said Leah
contemptuously.
60 TRANSITIONAL
He sat down.
" Well, what is it ? What has happened ? "
" She's engaged ! " In Leah's mouth the word
sounded like a death-bell.
" Engaged ! " he breathed, with a glimmering fore-
boding of the horror.
" To a Christian ! " said Daisy brutally.
He sank back, pale and trembling. A tense silence
fell on the room.
" But how ? Who ? " he murmured at last.
The girls recovered themselves. Now they were
all speaking at once.
" Another shimmer."
" He's the son of an archdeacon."
" An awful Christian crank."
"And that's your pet Schnapsie."
" If we had wanted Christians, we could have been
married twenty years ago."
" It's a terrible disgrace for us."
" She doesn't consider us in the least."
" She'll be miserable, anyhow. When they quarrel,
he'll always throw it up to her that she's a Jewess."
" And wouldn't join our Daughters of Mercy com-
mittee— had no time."
"Wasn't going to marry — turned up her nose at
all the Jewish young men ! "
" But she would have told me ! " he murmured
hopelessly. " I don't believe it. My little Schnap-
sie ! "
TRANSITIONAL 61
"Don't believe it?" snorted Leah. "Why, she
didn't even deny it."
" Have you spoken to her, then ? "
" Have we spoken to her ! Why, she says Judaism
is all nonsense ! She will disgrace us all."
The blind racial instinct spoke through them —
the twenty-five centuries of tested separateness. But
Daniel felt in super-addition the conscious religious
horror.
" But is she to be married in a Christian church ? "
he breathed.
" Oh, she isn't going to marry — yet."
His poor heart fluttered at the reprieve.
" She doesn't care a pin for our feelings," went on
Leah. " But of course she won't marry while you
are alive."
Lily took up the thread. " We all told her if she'd
only marry a Jew, we'd all be glad to have you — in
turn. But she said it wasn't that. She could have
you herself; her Alfred wouldn't mind. It's the
shock to your religious feelings that keeps her back.
She doesn't want to hurt you."
"God bless her, my good little Schnapsie!" he
murmured. His dazed brain did not grasp all the
bearings, was only conscious of a vast relief.
Disgust darkened all the faces.
He groped to understand it, putting his hand over
the white hairs that straggled from his skull-cap.
" But then — then it's all right."
62 TRANSITIONAL
" Yes, all right," said Leah brutally. " But for
how long ? "
Her meaning seized him like an icy claw upon his
heart. For the first time in his life he realized the
certainty of death, and simultaneously with the cer-
tainty its imminence.
" We want you to put a stop to it now," said
Sylvia. " For our sakes make her promise that even
when — You're the only one who has any influence
over her."
She rose, as if to wind up the painful interview,
and the others rose, too, with a multiplex rustling of
silken skirts. He shook the six jewelled hands as in
a dream, and promised to do his best ; and as he
watched the little procession of carriages roll off, it
seemed to him indeed a funeral, and his own.
VII
Ah God, that it should have come to this. Little
Schnapsie could not be happy till he was dead.
Well, why should he keep her waiting ? What
mattered the few odd years or months ? He was
already dead. There was his funeral going down
the street.
To speak to Schnapsie he had never intended,
even while he was promising it. Those years of
silent life together had made real conversation impos-
sible. The bridge on which his soul passed over to
TRANSITIONAL 63
hers was a bridge over which hung a sacred silence.
Under the weight of words, especially of angry
parental words, it might break down forever. And
that would be worse than death.
No ; little Schnapsie had her own life, and he
somehow knew he had not the right to question it,
even though it seemed on the verge of deadly sin.
He could not have expressed it in logical speech, was
not even clearly conscious of it ; but his tender rela-
tion with her had educated him to a sense of her
moral Tightness, which now survived and subsisted
with his conviction that she was hopelessly astray.
No, he had not the right to interfere with her life,
with her prospect of happiness in her own way. He
must give up living. Little Schnapsie must be nearly
thirty ; the best of her youth was gone. She should
be happy with this strange man.
But if he killed himself, that would bring disgrace
on the family — and little Schnapsie. Perhaps, too,
Alfred would not marry her. Was there no way of
slipping quietly out of existence ? But then suicide
was another deadly sin. If only that had really been
his funeral procession !
" O God, God of Israel, tell me what to do ! "
VIII
A sudden inspiration leapt to his heart. She
should not have to wait for his death to be happy ;
64 TRANSITIONAL
he would live to see her happy. He would pretend
that her marriage cost him no pang; indeed, would
not truly the pang be swallowed up in the thought of
her happiness? But would she be happy? Could
she be happy with this alien ? Ah, there was the
chilling doubt! If a quarrel came, would not the
man always throw it in her face that she was a
Jewess ? Well, that must be left to herself. She was
old enough not to rush into misery. Through all
these years he had taken her pensive brow as the
seat of all wisdom, her tender eyes as the glow of all
goodness, and he could not suddenly readjust himself
to a contradictory conception. By the time she came
in he had composed himself for his task.
" Ah, my dear," he said, with a beaming smile, " I
have heard the good news."
The answering smile died out of her eyes. She
looked frightened.
" It's all right, little Schnapsie," he said roguishly.
" So now I shall have seven sons-in-law. And Alfred
the Second, eh ? "
" You have heard ? "
"Yes," he said, pinching her ear. "Thinks she
can keep anything from her old father, does she ? "
" But do you know that he is a — a — "
" A Christian ? Of course. What's the difference,
as long as he's a good man, eh ? " He laughed noisily.
Little Schnapsie looked more frightened than ever.
Were her father's wits wandering at last ?
TRANSITIONAL 65
"But I thought — "
" Thought I would want you to sacrifice yourself !
No, no, my dear ; we are not in India, where women
are burnt alive to please their dead husbands."
Little Schnapsie had an irrelevant vision of herself
treading on diamonds and gold. She murmured,
" Who told you ? "
" Leah."
" Leah ! But Leah is angry about it ! "
" So she is. She came to me in a tantrum, but I
told her whatever little Schnapsie did was right."
" Father ! " With a sudden cry of belief and af-
fection she fell on his neck and kissed him. " But
isn't the darling old Jew shocked ? " she said, half
smiling, half weeping.
Cunning lent him clairvoyance. " How much
Judaism is there in your sisters' husbands ? " he said.
"And without the religion, what is the use of the
race?"
" Why, father, that's what I'm always preach-
ing ! " she cried, in astonishment. " Think what our
Judaism was in the dear old Portsmouth days. What
is the Sabbath here ? A mockery. Not one of your
sons-in-law closes his business. But there, when the
Sabbath came in, how beautiful ! Gradually it glided,
glided ; you heard the angel's wings. Then its shin-
ing presence was upon you, and a holy peace settled
over the house."
" Yes, yes." His eyes filled with tears. He saw
66 TRANSITIONAL
the row of innocent girl faces at the white Sabbath
table. What had London and prosperity brought
him instead ?
" And then the Atonement days, when the ram's
horn thrilled us with a sense of sin and judgment,
when we thought the heavenly scrolls were being
signed and sealed. Who feels that here, father ?
Some of us don't even fast."
"True, true." He forgot his part. "Then you
are a good Jewess still ? "
She shook her head sadly. "We have outlived
our destiny. Our isolation is a meaningless relic."
But she had kindled a new spark of hope.
" Can't you bring him over to us ? "
" To what ? To our empty synagogues ? "
" Then you are going over to him?" He tried to
keep his voice steady.
" I must ; his father is an archdeacon."
" I know, I know," he said, though she might as
well have said an archangel.
" But you do not believe in — in — "
" I believe in self-sacrifice ; that is Christianity."
" Is it ? I thought it was three Gods."
"That is not the essential."
"Thank God ! " he said. Then he added hurriedly :
" But will you be happy with him ? Such different
bringing up ! You can't really feel close to him."
She laughed and blushed. "There are deeper
things than one's bringing up, father."
TRANSITIONAL 67
" But if after marriage you should have a quarrel,
he would always throw up to you that you are a
Jewess."
" No, Alfred will never do that."
"Then make haste, little Schnapsie, or your old
father won't live to see you under the canopy."
She smiled happily, believing him. " But there
won't be any canopy," she said.
" Well, well, whatever it is," he laughed back, with
horrid imagining that it might be a Cross.
IX
It was agreed between them that, to avoid endless-
family councils, the sisters should not be told, and
that the ceremony should be conducted as privately
as possible. The archdeacon himself was coming up
to town to perform the ceremony in the church of
another of his sons in Chalk Farm. After the short
honeymoon, Daniel was to come and live with the
couple in Whitechapel, for they were to live in the
centre of their labours. Poor Daniel tried to find
some comfort in the thought that Whitechapel was
a more Jewish and a homelier quarter than Highbury.
But the unhomely impression produced upon him
by his latest son-in-law neutralized everything. All
his other sons-in-law had more or less awed him, but
beneath the awe ran a tunnel of brotherhood. With
68 TRANSITIONAL
*
this Alfred, however, he was conscious of a glacial
current, which not all the young man's cordiality
could tepefy.
" Are you sure you will be happy with him, little
Schnapsie ? " he asked anxiously.
" You dear worrying old thing ! "
" But if after marriage you quarrel, he will always
throw it up to you that you are — "
" And I'll throw it up to him that he is a Christian,
and oughtn't to quarrel."
He was silenced. But his heart thanked God that
his dear old wife had been spared the coming ordeal.
"This too was for good," he murmured, in the
Hebrew proverb.
And so the tragic day drew nigh.
One short week before, Daniel was wandering
about, dazed by the near prospect. An unholy fas-
cination drew him toward Chalk Farm, to gaze on
the church in which the profane union would be
perpetrated. Perhaps he ought even to go inside ; to
get over his first horror at being in such a building,
so as not to betray himself during the actual cere-
mony.
As he drew near the heathen edifice he saw a
striped awning, carriages, a bustle of people entering,
a pressing, peeping crowd. A wedding I
TRANSITIONAL 69
Ah, good ! There was no doubt now he must go
in ; he would see what this unknown ceremony in
this unknown building was like. It would be a sort
of rehearsal ; it would help to steel him at the tragic
moment. He was passing through the central doors
with some other men, but a policeman motioned them
to a side door. He shuffled timidly within.
Full as the church was, the chill stone spaces
struck cold to his heart ; all the vast alien life they
typified froze his soul. The dread word Meshumad
— apostate — seemed echoing and reechoing from
the cold pillars. He perceived his companions had
bared their heads, and he hastily snatched off his
rusty beaver. The unaccustomed sensation in his
scalp completed his sense of unholiness.
Nothing seemed going on yet, but as he slipped
into a seat in the aisle he became aware of an organ
playing joyous preludes, almost jiggish. For a mo-
ment he wondered dully what there was to be gay
about, and his eyes filled with bitter tears.
A craning forward in the nondescript congregation
made the old man peer forward.
He saw, at the far end of the church, a sort of
platform upon which four men, in strange, flowing
robes, stood under a cross. He hid his eyes from
the sight of the symbol that had overshadowed his
ancestors' lives. When he opened his eyes again the
men were kneeling. Would he have to kneel, he
wondered. Would his old joints have to assume
70 TRANSITIONAL
that pagan posture? Presently four bridesmaids,
shielded by great glowing bouquets, appeared on the
platform, and descending, passed with measured the-
atric pace down the farther avenue, too remote for
his clear vision. His neighbours stood up to stare at
them, and he rose, too. And throughout the organ
bubbled out its playful cadenzas.
A stir and a buzz swept through the church. A
procession began to file in. At its head was a pale,
severe young man, supported by a cheerful young
man. Other young men followed ; then the brides-
maids reappeared. And finally — target of every
glance — there passed a glory of white veil supported
by an old military looking man in a satin waistcoat.
Ah, that would be he and Schnapsie, then. Up
that long avenue, beneath all these curious Christian
eyes, he, Daniel Peyser, would have to walk. He
tried to rehearse it mentally now, so that he might
not shame her ; he paced pompously and stiffly, with
beautiful Schnapsie on his arm, a glory of white veil.
He saw himself slowly reaching the platform, under
the chilling cross ; then everything swam before him,
and he sank shuddering into his seat. His little
Schnapsie ! She was being sucked up into all this
hateful heathendom, to the seductive music of satanic
orchestras.
He sat in a strange daze, vaguely conscious that
the organ had ceased, and that some preacher's reci-
tative had begun instead. When he looked up
TRANSITIONAL 71
again, the bridal party before the altar loomed vague,
as through a mist. He passed his hand over his
clouded brow. Of a sudden a sentence of the recita-
tive pierced sharply to his brain : —
" Therefore if any man can show any just cause
why they may not lawfully be joined together, let
him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his
peace."
O God of Israel ! Then it was the last chance !
He sprang to his feet, and shouted in agony : " No,
no, she must not marry him ! She must not ! "
All heads turned toward the shabby old man.
An electric shiver ran through the church. The
bride paled ; a bridesmaid shrieked ; the minister,
taken aback, stood silent. A white-gloved .usher
hurried up.
" Do you forbid the banns ? " called the minister.
The old man's mind awoke, and groped mistily.
" Come, what have you to say ? " snapped the
usher.
"I — I — nothing," he murmured in awed confu-
sion.
" He is drunk," said the usher. " Out with you,
my man." He hustled Daniel toward the side' door,
and let it swing behind him.
But Daniel shrank from facing the cordon of spec-
tators outside. He hung miserably about the vestibule
till the Wedding March swelled in ironic triumph,
and the human outpour swept him into the street.
72 TRANSITIONAL
XI
His abstracted look, his ragged talk, troubled
Schnapsie at the evening meal, but she could not
elicit that anything had happened.
In the evening paper, her eye, avid of marriage
items, paused on a big-headed paragraph.
" I FORBID THE BANNS ! "
STRANGE SCENE AT A CHALK FARM CHURCH.
When she had finished the paragraph and read
another, the first began to come back to her, shad-
owed with a strange suspicion. Why, this was the
very . church — ? A Jewish-looking old man — !
Great heavens ! Then all this had been mere pose,
self-sacrifice. And his wits were straying under the
too heavy burden ! Only blind craving for her own
happiness could have made her believe that the men-
tal habits of seventy years could be broken off.
" Well, father," she said brightly, "you will be los-
ing me very soon now."
His lips quivered into a pathetic smile.
" I am very glad." He paused, struggling with
himself. " If you are sure you will be happy ! "
" But haven't we talked that over enough, father?"
" Yes — but you know — if a quarrel arose, he
would always throw it up — that —
" Nonsense, nonsense," she laughed. But the repe-
TRANSITIONAL 73
tition of the old thought struck her poignantly as a
sign of maundering wits.
" And you are sure you will get along together? "
"Quite sure."
"Then I am glad." He drew her to him, and
kissed her.
She broke down and wept under the conviction of
his lying. He became the comforter in his turn.
" Don't cry, little Schnapsie, don't cry. I didn't
mean to frighten you. Alfred is a good man, and I
am sure, even if you quarrel, he will never throw
it — " The mumbling passed into a kiss on her
wet cheek.
XII
That night, after a long passionate vigil in her
bedroom, little Schnapsie wrote a letter : —
"DEAREST ALFRED, — This will be as painful for you to
read as for me to write. I find at the eleventh hour I cannot
marry you. I owe it to you to state my reason. As you know,
I did not consent to our love being crowned by union till my
father had given his consent. I now find that this consent was
not the free outcome of my father's soul, that it was only to pro-
mote my happiness. Try to imagine what it means for an old
man of seventy odd years to wrench himself away from all his
life-long prejudices, and you will realize what he has been try-
ing to do for me. But the wrench was beyond his strength.
He is breaking his heart over it, and, I fear, even wandering
in his mjnd.
" You will say, let us again consent to wait for a contingency
which I am not cold-blooded enough to set down more openly.
74 TRANSITIONAL
But 1 do not think it is fair to you to let you risk your happi-
ness further by keeping it entangled with mine. A new current
of thought has been set going in my mind. If a religion that
I thought all formalism is capable of producing such types of
abnegation as my dear father, then it must, too, somewhere or
other, hold in solution all those ennobling ingredients, all those
stimuli to self-sacrifice, which the world calls Christian. Per-
haps I have always misunderstood. We were so badly taught.
Perhaps the prosaic epoch of Judaism into which I was born
is only transitional, perhaps it only belongs to the middle classes,
for I know I felt more of its poetry in my childhood ; perhaps
the future will develop (or recultivate) its diviner sides and lay
more stress upon the life beautiful, and thus all this blind in-
stinct of isolation may prove only the conservation of the race
for its nobler future, when it may still become, in very truth,
a witness to the Highest, a chosen people in whom all the
families of the earth may be blessed. ! do not know ; all this
is very confused and chaotic to me to-night. I only know I
can hold out no certain hope of the earthly fulfilment of our
love. I, too, feel in transition, and I know not to what. But,
dearest Alfred, shall we not be living the Christian life — the
life of abnegation — more truly if we give up the hope of per-
sonal happiness? Forgive me, darling, the pain I am causing
you, and thus help me to bear my own.
" Your friend till death,
" FLORENCE."
It was an hour past . midnight ere the letter was
finished, and when it was sealed a sense of relief at
remaining in the Jewish fold stole over her, though
she would scarcely acknowledge it to herself, and
impatiently analyzed it away as hereditary. And
despite it, if she slept on the letter, would it ever be
posted ?
But the house was sunk in darkness. She was
TRANSITIONAL 75
the only creature stirring. And yet she yearned to
have the thing over, irrevocable. Perhaps she might
venture out herself with her latch-key. There was
a letter-box at the street corner. She lit a candle
and stole out on the landing, casting a monstrous
shadow which frightened her. In her over-wrought
mood it almost seemed an uncanny creature grinning
at her. Her mother's death-bed rose suddenly be-
fore her ; her mother's voice cried : " Ah, Florrie,
do not fret. I will find thee a bridegroom." Was
this the bridegroom — was this the only one she
would ever know ?
"Father! father!" she shrieked, with sudden
terror.
A door was thrown open ; a figure shambled forth
in carpet slippers — a dear, homely, reassuring figure
— holding the coloured handkerchief which had helped
to banish him from the drawing-room. His face was
smeared ; his eyelids under the pushed-up horn spec-
tacles were red : he, too, had kept vigil.
" What is it ? What is it, little Schnapsie ? "
" Nothing. I — I — I only wanted to ask you if
you would be good enough to post this letter — to-
night."
" Good enough ? Why, I shall enjoy a breath of
air."
He took the letter and essayed a roguish laugh
as his eye caught the superscription.
"Ho! ho!" He pinched her cheek. "So we
76 TRANSITIONAL
mustn't let a day pass without writing to him,
eh ? "
She quivered under this unforeseen misconception.
" No," she echoed, with added firmness, " we
mustn't let a day pass."
" But go to bed at once, little Schnapsie. -You
look quite pale. If you stay up so late writing him
letters, you won't make him a beautiful bride."
" No," she repeated, " I won't make him a beauti-
ful bride."
She heard the hall door close gently upon his
cautious footsteps, and her eyes dimmed with divine
tears as she thought of the joy that awaited his re-
turn.
Ill
NOAH'S ARK
Ill
NOAH'S ARK
ON a summer's day toward the close of the first
quarter of the nineteenth century after Christ, Peloni
walked in "the good place " of the Frankfort Juden-
gasse and pondered. At times he came to a stand-
still and appeared to study the inscriptions on the
tumbled tombstones, or the carven dragons, shields,
and stars, but his black eyes burnt inward and he
saw less the tragedy of Jewish death than the tragedy
of Jewish life.
For "the good place " was the place of death.
Here alone in Frankfort — in this shut-in bit of
the shut-in Jew-street — was true peace for Israel.
The rest of the Jew-street offered comparative tran-
quillity even for the living ; yet when, ninety years
before Peloni was born, the great fire had raged
therein, the inhabitants had locked the Ghetto-gate
against the Christians, less fearful of the ravaging
flames than of their fellow-citizens. Even to-day,
if he ventured outside the Judengasse, Peloni must
tread delicately. The foot-path was not for him :
he must plod on the dusty road, with all the other
79
80 NOAH'S ARK
beasts. In some places the very road was too holy
for him, and any passer-by might snatch off his hat
in punishment for his breaking bounds. The ragged
street urchin or the staggering drunkard might cry
to him "'Jud,' mack mores: Jew, mind your man-
ners."
Some ten years ago the Frankfort Ghetto had
been verbally abolished by a civilized archduke,
caught up in the wave of Napoleonic toleration.
Peloni had shared in the exultation of the Jews at
the final dissipation of the long night of mediaeval-
ism. He had written a Hebrew poem on it, brill-
iantly rhymed, congested with apt quotations from
Bible and Talmud, the whole making an acrostic
upon the name of the enlightened Karl Theodor von
Dalberg. Henceforth Israel would take his place
among the peoples, honour on his brow, love in his
heart, manhood in his limbs. A gracious letter of
acknowledgment from the archduke was displayed in
the window of Peloni's little bookselling establish-
ment, amid the door-amulets, phylacteries, praying-
shawls, Purim-scrolls, and Hebrew volumes.
But now the prince had been ousted, Napoleon
was dead, everywhere the Ghetto-gates were locked
again, and the Poem lay stacked on the remainder
shelves. In vain had the grateful Jews hastened to
fight for the Fatherland, tendered it body and soul.
Poor little curly-haired Peloni had been attacked in
the streets as an alien that very morning. Roysterers
NOAH'S ARK 81
had raised the old cry of "Hep! Hep!" — fatal,
immemorial cry, ghastly heritage of the Crusades.
Century after century that cry had gone echoing
through Europe. Century after century the Jews
thought they had lived it down, bought it down, died
it down. But no ! it rose again, buoyant, menacing,
irresponsible. Ah, what a fool he had been to hope !
There was no hope.
Rarely, indeed, since the Dark Ages had persecu-
tion flaunted itself so openly. Riots and massacres
were breaking out all over Germany, and in his own
Ghetto Peloni had seen sights that had turned his
patriotism to gall, and crushed his trust in the Chris-
*~Ian, his beautiful bubble-dreams of the Millennium.
Rothschild himself, whose house in the Judengasse
with the sign of the red shield had been the centre
of the attack, was well-nigh unable to maintain his
position in the town. And these local successes in-
flamed the Jew-haters everywhere. " Let the chil-
dren of Israel be sold to the English," recommended
a popular pamphlet of the period, " who could em-
ploy them in their Indian' plantations instead of the
blacks. The best plan would be to purge the land
entirely of this vermin, either by exterminating them,
or, as Pharaoh, and the people of Meiningen, Wiirz-
burg, and Frankfort did, by driving them from the
country."
" Oh, God ! " thought Peloni, as his mind ran over
the long chain from Pharaoh to Frankfort. " Ever-
82 NOAH'S ARK
more to wander, stoned and derided ! Thou hast set
a mark on his forehead, but his punishment is greater
than he can bear."
The dead lay all around him, one upon another,
new red stones shouldering aside the gray stones
that told to boot of the death of the centuries. And
the pressure of all this struggle for death-room had
raised the earth higher than the adjacent paths. He
thought of how these dead had always come here ;
even in their lifetime, when the enemy raged out-
side. Here they had put the women and children
and gone back to the synagogue to pray. Ah, the
cowards ! always oscillating betwixt cemetery and
synagogue, why did they not live, why did they not
fight ? Yes, but they had fought, — fought for Ger-
many, and this was Germany's reply.
But could they not fight for themselves then, with
money, with the sinews of war, if not with the weap-
ons ; with gold, if not with steel ? could they not join
financial forces all through the world ? But no ! There
was no such solidarity as the Christians dreamed.
And they were too mixed up with the European
world to dream of self-concentration. Even while
the Frankfort Rothschild's house was surrounded
by rioters, the Paris Rothschild was giving a ball
to the Mite of diplomatic society.
No! the old Jews were right — there was only the
synagogue and the cemetery.
But was there even the synagogue ? That, too,
NOAH'S ARK 83
was dead. The living faith, the vivid realization of
Israel's hope, which had made the Dark Ages en-
durable and even luminous, were only to be found
now among fanatics whose blind ignorance and fierce
clinging to the dead letter and the obsolete form
counterbalanced the poetry and sublimity of their
persistence. In the Middle Ages, Peloni felt, his
poems would have been absorbed into the liturgy.
For when the liturgy and the religion were alive,
they took in and gave out — like all living things.
But no — the synagogue of to-day was dead.
Remained only the cemetery.
"Jude, verrek '! " Jew, die like a beast.
Yes, what else was there to do ? For he was not
even a Rothschild, he told himself with whimsical
anguish ; only a poor poet, unread, unknown, un-
healthy ; a shadow that only found substance to
suffer ; a set of heart-strings across which every wind
that blew made a poignant, passionate music ; a
lamentation incarnate, a voice of weeping in the
wilderness, a bubble blown of tears, a dream, a mist,
a nobody, — in short, Peloni !
The dead generations drew him. He fell, weep-
ing passionately, upon a tomb.
II
There seemed an unwonted stir in the Judengasse
when Peloni returned to it. Was there another riot
84 NOAH'S ARK
threatening ? he thought, as he passed along the nar-
row street of three-storied frame houses, most of
them gabled, and all marked by peculiar signs and
figures — the Bear or the Lion or the Garlic or the
Red Shield (Rothschild} !
Outside the synagogue loitered a crowd, and as he
drew near he perceived that there was a long Procla-
mation in a couple of folio sheets nailed on the door.
It was doubtless this which was being discussed by
the little groups he had already noted. About the
synagogue door the throng was so thick that he
could not get near enough- to read it himself. But
fortunately some one was engaged in reading it aloud
for the benefit of those on the outskirts.
" ' Wherefore I, Mordecai Manuel Noah, Citizen of
the United States of America, late Consul of said
States to the City and Kingdom of Tunis, High
Sheriff of New York, Counsellor-at-Law, and by the
Grace of God Governor and Judge of Israel, have
issued this my proclamation. ' " .
A derisive laugh from a dwarfish figure in the
crowd interrupted the reading. " Father Noah come
to life again ! " It was the Possemacher, or wed-
ding-jester, who was not sparing of his wit, even
when not professionally engaged.
"A foreigner — an American!" sneered a more
serious voice. " Who made him ruler in Israel ? "
" That's what the wicked Israelite asked Moses ! "
cried Peloni, curiously excited.
NOAH'S ARK 85
" Nun, nun ! Go on ! " cried others.
" ' Announcing to the Jews throughout the world,
that an asylum is prepared and hereby offered to
them, where they can enjoy that Peace, Comfort, and
Happiness which have been denied them through
the intolerance and misgovernment of former ages.
An asylum in a free and powerful country, where
ample protection is secured to their persons, their
property, and religious rights ; an asylum in a coun-
try remarkable for its vast resources, the richness of
its soil, and the salubrity of its climate ; where indus-
try is encouraged, education promoted, and good
faith rewarded. " A land of Milk and Honey," where
Israel may repose in Peace, under his " Vine and Fig
tree," and where our People may so familiarize them-
selves with the science of government and the lights
of learning and civilization, as may qualify them for
that great and final Restoration to their ancient heri-
tage, which the times so powerfully indicate.' "
The crowd had grown attentive. Peloni's face
was pale as death. What was this great thing, fallen
so unexpectedly from the impassive heaven his hope-
lessness had challenged ?
But the Possemacher captured the moment.
" Father Noah's drunk again ! "
A great laugh shook the crowd. But Peloni dug
his nails into his palms. " Read on ! Read on ! "
he cried hoarsely.
" ' The Place of Refuge is in the State of New
86 NOAH'S ARK
York, the largest in the American Union, and the
spot to which I invite my beloved People from the
whole world is called Grand Island.' "
Peloni drew a deep breath. His face had now
changed to the other extreme and was flushed with
excitement.
" Noah's Ark ! " shot the Posscmacher dryly, and
had his audience swaying hysterically.
" For God's sake, brethren !" cried Peloni. "This
is no joke. Have you forgotten already that here
we are only animals ? "
" And they went in two by two," said the Posse-
machcr, " the clean beasts, and the unclean beasts ! "
" Hush, hush, let us hear ! " from some of the
crowd.
" ' Here I am resolved to lay the foundation of a
State, named Ararat.' "
" Ah ! what did I say ? " the exultant Possemacher
shrieked at Peloni.
" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed the crowd. " Noah's
Ark resting on Ararat ! " The dullest saw that.
Peloni was taken aback for a moment.
" But why should not the place of Israel's Ark of
Refuge be named Ararat ? " he asked of his neigh-
bours.
" If only his name wasn't Noah ! " they answered.
"That makes it even more appropriate," he mur-
mured.
But " Noah's Ark " was the nickname that kills.
NOAH'S ARK 87
Though the reader continued, it was only to an audi-
ence exhilarated by a sense of Arabian Nights fan-
tasy. But the elaborate description of the grandeurs
of this Grand Island, and the eloquent passages
about the Century of Right, and the ancient Oracles,
restored Peloni's enthusiasm to fever heat.
" It is too long," said the reader, wearying at last.
Peloni rushed forward and took up the task. The
first sentence exalted him still further.
" ' In God's name I revive, renew, and reestablish
the government of the Jewish Nation, under the
auspices and protection of the Constitution and the
Laws of the United States, confirming and perpetu-
ating all our Rights and Privileges, our Name, our
Rank, and our Power among the nations of the
Earth, as they existed and were recognized under the
government of the Judges of Israel.' ' Peloni's
voice shook with fervour. As he began the next sen-
tence, " ' It is my will,' " he stretched out his hand
with an involuntary regal gesture. The spirit of
Noah was entering into him, and he felt almost as if
it was he who was re-creating the Jewish nation —
" ' It is my will that a Census of the Jews throughout
the world be taken, that those who are well treated
and wish to remain in their respective countries shall
aid those who wish to go ; that those who are in mili-
tary service shall until further orders remain true
and loyal to their rulers.
" ' I command ' " — Peloni read the words with ex-
88 NOAH'S ARK
pansive magnificence, his poet's soul vibrating to
that other royal dreamer's across the great Atlantic
— " ' that a strict Neutrality be maintained in the
pending war betwixt Greece and Turkey.
"'I abolish forever'" — Peloni's hand swept the
air, — " ' Polygamy among the Jews.' "
" But where have we polygamy ? " interrupted the
Possemacher.
'"As it is still practised in Africa and Asia,' "
read on Peloni severely.
" I'm off at once for Africa and Asia ! " cried the
marriage-jester, pretending to run. "Good business
for me there."
" You'll find better business in America," said
Peloni scathingly. " For do not all our Austrian
young men fly thither to marry, seeing that at home
only the eldest son may found a family ? A pretty
fatherland indeed to be a citizen of — a step-father-
land. Listen, on the contrary, to the noble tolerance
of the -Jew. ' Christians are freely invited.' "
"Ah! Do you know who'll go?" broke in a
narrow-faced zealot. "The missionaries."
Peloni continued hastily : " ' Ararat is open, too,
to the Caraites and the Samaritans. The Black
Jews of India and Africa shall be welcome; our
brethren in Cochin-China and the sect on the coast
of Malabar ; all are welcome.' "
" Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed a burly Jew. " So we're
to live with the blacks. Enough of this joke ! "
NOAH'S ARK 89
But Peloni went on solemnly : " ' A Capitation-
tax on every Jew of Three Silver Shekels per
annum — ' '
" Ah, now we have got to it ! " and a great roar
broke from the crowd. " Not a bad Gesckdft, eh ? "
and they winked. " He is no fool, this Noah."
Peloni's blood boiled. " Do you believe everybody
is like yourselves ? " he cried. " Listen ! "
" ' I do appoint the first day of next Adar for a
Thanksgiving Day to the God of Israel, for His
divine protection and the fulfilment of His promises
to the House of Israel. I recommend Peace and
Union among ourselves, Charity and Good-will to all,
Toleration and Liberality toward our Brethren of all
Religions — ' '
" Didn't I say a missionary in disguise ? " mur-
mured the zealot.
Peloni ended, with tremulous emotion : " ' I humbly
entreat to be remembered in your prayers, and ear-
nestly do I enjoin you to " keep the charge of the
Holy God," to walk in His ways, to keep His
Statutes and His commandments and His judg-
ments and Testimonies, as written in the Laws of
Moses ; "that thou mayest prosper in all thou doest
and whithersoever thou turnest thyself."
" ' Given under our hand and seal in the State of
New York, on the 2d of Ab 5586 in the Fiftieth
Year of American Independence.' "
90 NOAH'S ARK
Peloni's efforts to organize a company of pilgrims
to the New Jerusalem brought him only heart-ache.
The very rabbi who had good-naturedly consented to
circulate the fantastic foreigner's invitation, tapped
his forehead significantly : " A visionary ! of good
intentions, doubtless, but still — a visionary. Be-
sides, according to our dogmas, God alone knows
the epoch of the Israelitish restoration ; He alone
will make it known to the whole universe, by signs
entirely unequivocal ; and every attempt on our part
to reassemble with any political, national design, is
forbidden as an act of high treason against the
Divine Majesty. Mr. Noah has doubtless forgotten
that the Israelites, faithful to the principles of their
belief, are too much attached to the countries where
they dwell, and devoted to the governments under
which they enjoy liberty and protection, not to treat
as a mere jest the chimerical consulate of a pseudo-
restorer."
" Noah's a madman, and you're an infant," Peloni's
friends told him.
" Since the destruction of the Temple," he quoted
in retort, " the gift of prophecy has been confined to
children and fools."
"You are giving up a decent livelihood," they
warned him. "You are throwing it into the
Atlantic."
" ' Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall
return to thee after many days.' "
NOAH'S ARK 91
" But in the meantime ? "
" ' Man doth not live by bread alone.' '
"As you please. But don't ask us to throw up
our comfortable home here."
"Comfortable home!" and Peloni grew almost
apoplectic as he reminded them of their miseries.
" Persecution ? " They shrugged their shoulders.
"It comes only now and again, like a snow-storm,
and we crawl through it."
"That's just it — the lack of manliness — the
poisoned atmosphere ! "
" Bah ! The Goyim refuse us equal rights because
they know we're their superiors. Let us not jump
from the frying-pan into the fire."
So Peloni sailed for New York alone.
Ill
He was rather disappointed to find no other pil-
grim even on the ship. True, there was one Jew,
but the business Paradise of New York was his goal
across this waste of waters, and of Noah's Ark he
had never heard. Peloni's panegyric of Grand
Island was rendered ineffective by his own nebu-
lous conception of its commercial possibilities. He
passed the slow days in the sailing-vessel polishing
up his English, the literature of which he had long
studied.
In New York Peloni's hopes revived. Major
92 NOAH'S ARK
Noah — for it appeared he was an officer of militia
likewise — was in everybody's mouth. Editor of
the National Advocate, the leading organ of the
Bucktails, or Tammany party, a journalist whose
clever sallies and humorous paragraphs were widely
enjoyed, an author of excellent "Travels," a play-
wright of the first distinction, whose patriotic dramas
were always given on the Fourth of July, a critic
regarded as Sir Oracle, a politician, lawyer, and man
of the world, a wit, the gay centre Of every gather-
ing — surely in this lion of New York, who was also
the Lion of David, Israel had at last found a de-
liverer. They called him madman down in Frank-
fort, did they ? Well, let them come here and see.
He wrote home to the scoffers of the Jiidengasse
all the information about the great man that was in
the very air of the American city, though the man
himself he had only as yet corresponded with. He
told the famous story of how when Noah was can-
vassing for the office of High Sheriff of New York,
it was urged that no Jew should be put into an office
where he might have to hang a Christian, to which
Noah had retorted wittily, " Pretty Christian, to
have to be hanged!" "And you all fancied
' Father Noah ' would fall to pieces before the
Possemacher 's wit ! " Peloni commented with venge-
ful satisfaction. "I rejoice to say that Noah will
never have anything to do with a Possemacher, for
he is President of the Old Bachelors' Club, the mem-
NOAH'S ARK 93
bers of which are pledged never to marry." He told
of Noah's adventurous career : of how when he was
a mere boy clerk in the auditor's office of his native
Philadelphia, Congress had voted him a hundred
dollars for his precocious preparation of the actuary
tables for the eight-per-cent loan ; of the three duels
at Charleston, in which he had vindicated at once
the courage of the Jew and the policy of American
resistance to Great Britain ; of his consulate in Tunis,
his capture at sea by the British fleet during the war,
his release on parole that enabled him to travel about
England ; of his genius for letters — a very David in
Israel ; of his generosity to hundreds of strugglers ;
of his quixotic disdain of money ; of his impoverish-
ing himself by paying two hundred thousand dollars
of other people's debts as the price of his impulsive
shrieval action in throwing open the doors of the
Debtor's Jail when the yellow fever broke out within.
" Yes," wrote Peloni exultantly, " in New York they
talk no more of Shylock. And with all the tempta-
tions to Christian fellowship or Pagan free-living, a
pillar of the synagogue, — nay, Israel's one hope in
all the world ! "
It was a wonderful moment when Peloni, at last
invited to call on the Judge of Israel, palpitated on
the threshold of his study and gazed blinkingly at
the great man enthroned before his writing-table
amid elegant vistas of books and paintings. What
a noble poetic vision it seemed to him : the broad
84 NOAirS ARK
brow, with the tumbled hair; the long, delicate-fea-
tured face tapering to a narrow chin environed with
whiskers, but clean of beard or even of mustache,
so that the mobile, sensitive mouth was laid bare.
Peloni's glance also took in a handsome black coat,
with a decoration on the lapel, a high-peaked collar,
a black puffy bow, a frilled shirt, and a very broad
jewelled cuff over a white, long-fingered hand, that
held a tall quill with a great breadth of feather.
" Ah, come in," said the Governor of Israel, wav-
ing his quill. " You are Peloni of Frankfort."
"Come three thousand miles to kiss the hem of
your garment."
Noah permitted the attention. " I am obliged to
you for your Hebrew poem in honour of my project,"
he said urbanely. " I approve of Hebrew — it is a
link that binds us to our forefathers. I am myself
editing a translation of the Book of Jasher."
" You will have found my verses a very poor ex-
pression of your divine ideas."
"You use a difficult Hebrew. But the general
drift seemed to show you had caught the greatness
of my conception."
" Ah, yes ! I have lived in &Judengasse, oppressed
and derided."
" But there is worse than oppression — there is
inward stagnation of the spiritual life. My idea
came to me in Tunis, where the Jews are little op-
pressed. You know President Madison appointed
NOAHJS ARK: 96
me consul of the United States for the city and king-
dom of Tunis, one of the most respectable and inter-
esting stations in the regencies of Barbary. I had
long desired to visit the country of Dido and Hanni-
bal, to trace the field of Zama, and seek out the ruins
of Utica, — whose sites I believe I have now success-
fully established, — but it was my main design to
investigate the condition of the Barbary Jews, of
whom, you will remember, we have no account later
than Benjamin of Tudela's in the thirteenth century.
But do not stand — take a chair. Well, I found our
brethren — to the number of seven hundred thousand
— controlling everything in Barbary, farming the
revenue, regulating the coinage, keeping the Dey's
jewels and almost his person, — in short, anything
but persecuted, though, of course, the majority were
miserably poor. They did not know I was a Jew —
though Secretary Monroe recalled me because I was,
and it was Monroe's doctrine that Judaism would
be an obstacle to the discharge of my functions.
Absurd ! The Catholic priest was allowed to sprinkle
the Consulate with holy water : the barefooted Fran-
ciscan received an alms, nor did I fail to acknowledge
by a donation the decorated branch sent on Palm
Sunday by the Greek Bishop. And as for the slaves,
I assure you they were not backward in coming to
ask favours. The only people who never came to me
were precisely the Jews. I went about among them
incognito, so to speak, like Haroun Alraschid among
96 NOAH'S ARK
his subjects ; hence I was able to see all the evils
that will never be eliminated till Israel is again a
nation."
" Ah ! your words are the words of wisdom. You
touch the root of the evil. It is what I have always
told them."
Noah rose to his feet, displaying a royal stature in
harmony with his broad shoulders. " Yes, I resolved
it should be mine to elevate my people, to make them
hold up their heads worthily in this century of free-
dom and enlightenment."
" It is the Ark of the Convenant, as well as of the
Deluge, which will rest on Ararat ! "
" True — and like the first Noah, I may become
the progenitor of a new world. I have communica-
tions from the four corners of the earth. You are
the type of thousands who will flee from the rotting
tyrannies of Europe into the great free republic
which I shall direct."
He began to pace the room. Peloni had visions
of great black lines of pilgrims converging from
every quarter of the compass.
" But this Grand Island — is it yours ? " he inquired
timidly.
" I have bought thousands of acres of it — I and
a few others who believe in the .great future of our
people."
" Jews ? "
" No, not Jews — capitalists who know that we
NOAH'S ARK 97
shall become the commercial centre of the new world,
— that is, of the world of the future."
Peloni groaned. " And Jews will not believe ?
We must go to the Gentiles. Jews will only put their
money into Gentile schemes; will build always for
others, never for themselves. It is the same every-
where. Alas for Israel! "
" It is what I preach. Why administer Barbary
for a savage Dey when you can administer Grand
Island for yourself ? Seven hundred thousand Jews
in savage Barbary, and throughout these vast free
States not seven thousand. Ah, but they will come ;
they will come. Ararat will gather its millions."
" But will there be room ? "
" The State of New York," replied Noah, impres-
sively, "is the largest in the Union, containing forty-
three thousand two hundred and fourteen square
miles divided into fifty-five counties and having six
thousand and eighty-seven post-towns and cities
together with six million acres of cultivated land.
The constitution is founded on equality of rights.
We recognize no religious differences. In our seven
thousand free schools and gymnasia, four hundred
thousand children of every religion are being edu-
cated. Here in this great and progressive State the
long wandering of my beloved people shall end."
" But Grand Island itself ? " murmured Peloni
feebly.
"Come here," and Noah unrolled a great map.
98 NO Airs ARK
" See, how nobly it is situated in the Niagara River,
near the world-famed Falls, which will supply water-
power for our machinery. It is twelve miles long
and from three to seven broad, and contains seven-
teen thousand acres. Lake Erie is two hundred and
seventy miles long and borders New York, Pennsyl-
vania, and Ohio, as well as Canada. And see ! by
navigable streams this great lake is connected with
all that wonderful chain of lakes. By short canals
we shall connect with the Illinois and Mississippi,
and trade with New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.
Through the Ontario — see here ! — we traffic with
Quebec, Montreal, and touch the great Atlantic.
The Niagara Falls, as I said, turn our machinery.
The fur trade, the lumber trade, all is ours. Our
cattle multiply, our lands wave with harvests. We
are the centre of the world, the capital of the future.
And look ! See what the Albany Gazette says :
' Here the Hebrews can have their Jerusalem without
fearing the legions of Titus. Here they can erect
their Temple without dreading the torches of frenzied
soldiers. Here they can lay their heads on their
pillows at night without fear of mobs, of bigotry and
persecution.' '
Peloni drew a long breath, enraptured by this holy
El Dorado, sparkling on the map, amid its tributary
lakes and rivers.
"You will see the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah
fulfilled," Noah went on. " For what is the ' land
NOAH'S ARK 99
shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of
Ethiopia,' which shall send messengers to a nation
scattered and peeled ? What but America, shadow-
ing us with the wings of its eagle ? As it is written
elsewhere, ' I will bear thee on eagle's wings.' It is
true the English Bible translates ' Woe to the land,'
but this is a mistranslation. It should be ' Hail to
the land ! ' Also the word ' goumey ' they translate
' bulrushes ' — ' that sendeth messengers in vessels of
bulrushes ! ' But does not 'goumey ' also mean ' rush,
impetus ? ' And is it not therefore a prophecy of
those new steam-vessels that are beginning to creep
up, one of which has just crossed from England to
India ? Erelong they will be running between
America and all the world. It is the Lord making
ready for the easy ingathering of His people. Ay,
and along these lakes" — the Prophet's finger swept
the map — "will be heard the panting of mighty
steam-monsters, all making for Ararat. By the way,
Ararat lies here," and he indicated a spot of the
island opposite Tonawanda on the mainland.
Peloni bent down and poetically pressed his lips to
the spot, like Jehuda Halevi kissing the holy soil.
" There is no one in possession there ? " he inquired
anxiously.
" Maybe a few Iroquois Indians," said Noah.
" But they will not have to be turned out like the
Hittites and Amorites and Jebusites by our an-
cestors."
100 NOAH'S ARK
" No ? " murmured Peloni
" Of course not. They are our own brothers,
carried away by the King of Assyria. There can be
not the slightest doubt that the Red Indians are the
Lost Ten Tribes of Israel."
" What ? " cried Peloni, vastly excited.
"I shall publish a book on the subject. Yes, in
worship, dialect, language, sacrifices, marriages,
divorces, burials, fastings, purifications, punishments,
cities of refuge, divisions of tribes, High-Priests, wars,
triumphs — 'tis our very tradition."
" Then I suppose one could lodge with them. I
am anxious to settle in Ararat at once."
" You can scarcely settle there till the forest is
cleared," said the great man, arching his eyebrows.
" The forest ! " repeated Peloni, taken aback.
"Ah, you are dismayed. You are a European,
accustomed to ready-made cities. We Americans,
we change continents while you wait, build up
Aladdin's palaces over-night. As soon as I can
manage to go over the ground I will plan out the
city."
"You haven't been there yet?" gasped Peloni.
" Ah, my dear Peloni. When should I find time
to travel all the way to Buffalo, — a busy editor,
lawyer, playwright, what not ? True, the time that
other men give to domestic happiness the President
of the Old Bachelors' Club is able to give to his
fellow-men. But the slow canal voyage — "
NOAH'S ARK 101
At this moment there was a knock at the door,
and a servant inquired if Major Noah could see his
tailor.
"Ah, a good augury!" cried the major. "Here
is the tailor come to try on my Robe of Governor
and Judge of Israel."
The man bore an elaborate robe of crimson silk
trimmed with ermine, which he arranged about
Noah's portly person, making marks with pins and
chalk where it could be made to fit better.
" Do you like it ? " said Noah, puffing himself out
regally.
Peloni's uneasiness vanished. Doubt was impos-
sible before these magnificent realities. Ah ! the
Americans were wonderful.
" I had to go through our annals," Noah explained,
"to find which period of our government we could
revive. Kingship was opposed to the sentiment of
these States : in the epoch of the Judges I found my
ideal. Indeed, what is the President of the United
States but a Shophet, a Judge of Israel ? Ah, you
are looking at that painting of me — I shall have to
be done again in my new robes. That elegant crea-
ture who hangs beside me is Miss Leesugg, the Hebe
of English actresses, as she appeared in my ' She
would be a Soldier, or the Plains of Chippewa.'
There is a caricature of my uncle, Aaron J. Phillips,
as the Turkish Commander in my ' Grecian Captive.'
Dear me, shall I ever forget how he tumbled off that
102 NOAH'S ARK
elephant ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! That is Miss Johnson, in
my 'Yusef Carmatti, or the Siege of Tripoli.' The
black and white is a fancy sketch of ' Marion, or the
Hero of Lake George,' a play I wrote for the
reopening of the Park Theatre and to celebrate
the evacuation of New York by the British in
1783."
" Ah, I was there, Major," said the tailor. " It
was bully. But the house was so full of generals
and colonels you could hardly hear a word."
" Fortunately for me," laughed Noah. " Yes, I
asked them to come in full uniform for the eclat
of the occasion. Which reminds me — here is a
ticket for you."
" For the play ? " murmured Peloni, as he took it.
Noah started and looked at him keenly. But his
flush of anger faded before Peloni's innocent eyes.
"No, no," he explained ; "for the opening ceremony
of the foundation of Ararat."
Peloni's black eyes shone.
" There will be a great crush and only ticket-
holders can be admitted into the church."
" Into the church ! " echoed Peloni, paling.
"Yes," said the Judge of Israel impressively, as he
stood before a glass to adjust the graceful folds of
his crimson robe. " Our fellow-citizens in Buffalo
have been good enough to lend us the Episcopal
Church for the ceremony."
"What ceremony?" he faltered, as horrid images
NOAH'S ARK 103
swept before him, and he heard all the way from
Frankfort the taunting cry of " Missionary ! "
"The laying of the foundation-stone of Ararat."
" Laying the foundation-stone in a church ! " Peloni
was puzzled.
"Ah," said the Major, misunderstanding him ; "it
seems strange to you, nursed in the musty lap of
Europe. But here in this land of freedom and this
century of enlightenment all men are brothers."
" But surely the foundation-stone should be laid
on Grand Island."
" It would have been desirable. But so many will
wish to be present at this great celebration. Buffalo
alone has some thirteen hundred inhabitants. How
should we get them across ? There are scarcely any
boats to be had — and Ararat is twelve miles away.
No, no, it is better to hold our ceremony in Buffalo.
It is, after all, only a symbolism. The corner-stone
is already being inscribed in Hebrew and English.
' Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. Ararat, a
City of Refuge for the Jews, founded by Mordecai
M. Noah in the month Tishri, corresponding with
September, 1825, in the fiftieth year of American
Independence.' "
The sonorous recitation by the Shophet in his
crimson and ermine robe somewhat restored Peloni's
equanimity.
" But when will the actual city be begun ? " he
asked.
104 NOAH'S ARK
The Shop/tet waved his hand airily. "A matter
of days."
" But are you sure we can build there ? "
"Look at the map. Here is Grand Island —
ours ! Here is the site of Ararat. It is all as plain
as a pikestaff. And, talking of pikestaffs, it would
not be a bad idea to plant a staff on Ararat with the
flag of Israel."
Peloni took fire : " Yes, yes, let me go and plant
it. I'll journey night and day."
" You shall plant it," said the Shophet graciously.
" Yes, I'll have the flag made at once. The property
man at the Park Theatre will attend to it for me.
The Lion of Judah and seven stars."
" It shall be waving on Grand Island before you
open the celebration in Buffalo."
Peloni went out like a lion, his head in the seven
stars. Could it be possible that to him — Peloni —
had fallen the privilege of proclaiming the New
Jerusalem !
IV
After the bustle of New York, the scattered village
of Buffalo was restful but somewhat chilling to the
Ghetto-bred poet, with his quick brain, unaccustomed
to the slow processes of nature. Buffalo — with its
muddy, unpaved streets, and great trees, up which
squirrel and chipmunk ran — was still half in and
half out of mother earth ; man's artifice ruled in the
NOAH'S ARK 105
high street with its stores and inns, some of which
were even of brick ; but in the byways every now
and then a primitive log cabin broke the line of
frame cottages, and in the outskirts cows and pigs
walked about unconcernedly. It was a reminder of
all that would have to be done in Ararat ere a
Temple could shine, like a lighthouse of righteous-
ness to the tossing nations. But when Peloni learned
that it was only twelve years since the scarcely
born village had been burnt down by the British
and Indians in the war, he felt reencouraged, warm-
ing himself at the flame, so to speak. And when he
found that the citizens were all agog about Ararat
and the church celebration — that it divided interest
with the Erie Canal, the hanging of the three
Thayers, and the recent reception of General Lafay-
ette at the Eagle Tavern — his heart expanded in a
new poem.
It was indeed an auspicious moment for Noah's
scheme. All eyes were turned on the coming cele-
bration of the opening of the great canal, to be the
terminus of which Buffalo had fought victoriously
against Black Rock. Golden visions of the future
gleamed almost tangibly ; and amid the general
magnificence Noah's ornate dream took on equal
solidity. Endless capital would be directed into the
neighbourhood of Buffalo — for Ararat was only
twelve miles away. Besides, all the great men of
Buffalo — and there were many — had been honoured
106 NOAH'S ARK
with elaborate cards of invitation to the grand cere-
mony of the foundation-stone. A few old Baptist
farmers were surly about the threatened vast Jewish
immigration, but the majority proclaimed with right-
eous warmth that the glorious American Constitution
welcomed all creeds, and that there was money in it.
Peloni looked about for a Jew to guide him, but
could find none. Finally a Seneca Indian from the
camp just below Buffalo undertook to look for the
spot. It was with a strange thrill that Peloni's eyes
rested for the first time on a red Indian. Was this
indeed a long-lost brother of his? He cried "Shalom
Aleikhem " in Hebrew, but the Indian, despite
Noah's theories, did not seem to understand. Ulti-
mately the dialogue was carried on in the few
words of broken English which the Indian had
picked up from the trappers, and in the gesture-
language, in which, with his genius for all lan-
guages, Peloni was soon at home. And in truth
he did find at heart some subtle sympathy with this
copper-coloured savage which was not called out by
the busy citizens of Buffalo. On a sunlit morning,
bearing his flagstaff with the flag wrapped round
it, a blanket, and a little store of provisions for
camping out over-night, Peloni slipped into the
birch canoe and the Indian paddled off. For miles
they glided in silence along the sparkling Niagara,
lone denizens of a lonely world.
Suddenly Peloni thought of the Jndengasse of
NOAff'S ARK 107
Frankfort, and for a moment it seemed to him that
he must be dreaming. What! a few short months
ago he was selling prayer-books and phylacteries
in the shadow of the old high-gabled houses, and
now, in a virgin district of the New World, in
company with a half-naked red Indian, he was
going to plant the flag of Judah on an island
forest and to found the New Jerusalem. What
would they say, his old friends, if they could see
him now? And he — the Possemacher — what
winged jest would he let fly ? A perception of the
monstrous fantasy of the thing stole on poor Peloni.
Was he, perhaps, dreaming after all ? No, there
was the Niagara River, the village of Black Rock on
his right hand, and on the other side of the gorge
the lively Fort Erie and the poplar-fringed Cana-
dian shore, and there too — on the map Noah had
given him — Ararat lay waiting.
The Indian paddled imperturbably, throwing back
the sparkling water with a soft, soothing sound.
Peloni lapsed into more pleasurable reflections.
How beautiful was this great free place of sun and
wind, of water and forest, after the noisome Jew-
street ! He was not dreaming, nor — thank God ! —
was Noah. Strange, indeed, that thus should de-
liverance for Israel be wrought ; yet what was
Israel's history but a series of miracles ? And his
- Peloni's — humble hand was to plant the flag that
had lain folded and inglorious these twenty centuries!
108 NOAH'S ARK
They glided by a couple of little islands, duly
marked on the map, and then a great, wooded,
dark purple mass rose to meet them with a band
of deep orange on the low coast-line.
It was Grand Island.
Peloni whispered a prayer.
Obeying the map marked by Noah, the canoe
glided round the island, keeping to the American
side. As they shot past a third little island, a dull
booming began to be audible.
"What is that?" Peloni's face inquired.
The Indian smiled. " Not go many miles farther,"
he indicated. " The Rapids soon. Then — whizz !
Then big jump ! Niagara. Dead."
Fortunately Ararat was due much sooner than
Niagara. As they drew near the fourth of the
little islands, which lay betwixt Grand Island and
the mainland of the States, and saw the Tona-
wanda Creek emptying itself into the river, Peloni
signed to the Indian to land ; for it was here that
Ararat was to arise.
The landing was easy, the river here being shal-
low and the bank low. The beauty of the spot,
as it lay wild and fresh from God's hand in the
golden sunlight, moved Peloni to tears. The In-
dian, who seemed curious as to his movements and
willing to share his mid-day meal, tied his canoe
to a basswood tree and followed the standard-
bearer. There was a glorious medley of leafy life —
NOAH'S ARK 109
elm, oak, maple, linden, pine, wild cherry, wild
plum — which Peloni could only rejoice in without
differentiating it by names ; and as the oddly as-
sorted couple walked through the sun-dappled
glades they startled a world of scurrying animal
life — snipe and plover and partridges and singing-
birds, squirrels and rabbits and even deer, that
frisked and fluttered unprescient of the New Jeru-
salem that menaced their immemorial inheritance.
The- joy of city-building had begun at last to dawn
on Peloni, the immense pleasure to the human will
of beginning afresh, of shaking off the pressure of
the ages, of inscribing free ideas on the plastic
universe. As he wandered at random in search of
a suitable spot on which to plant the flagstaff, the
romance of this great American world thrilled him,
of this vast continent won acre by acre from nature
and the savage, covering itself with splendid cities ;
a retrospective sympathy with the citizens of Buf-
falo and their coming canal warmed his breast.
Of a sudden he heard a screaming, and looking
up he observed two strange, huge birds upon a
blasted pine.
" Eagles," said the laconic Indian.
" Eagles ! " And Peloni's heart leaped with a
remembrance of Noah's words. " Here under their
wings shall our flag be unfurled. And that blasted
tree is Israel, that shall flourish again."
He dug the pole into the earth. A breeze caught
110 NOAff'S ARK
the flag, and the folds flew out, and the Lion of
Judah and the seven stars flapped in the face of an
inattentive universe. Peloni intoned the Hebrew bene-
diction, closing his eyes in pious ecstasy. " Blessed
art Thou, O Lord our God, who hast kept us alive,
and preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day ! "
As he opened his eyes, he perceived in the distance
high in air, rising far above the Island, a great mist
of shining spray, amid which rainbows netted and
tangled themselves in ineffable dream-like loveliness.
At the same instant his ear caught — over the boom
of the rapids — the first hint of another, a mightier,
a more majestic roar.
" Niagara," murmured the Indian.
But Peloni's eyes were fixed on the celestial vision.
"The Shechinah!" he whispered. "The divine
presence that rested on the Tabernacle, and on Solo-
mon's Temple, and that has returned at last — to
Ararat."
The booming of cannon from the Court House, and
from the Terrace facing the lake, saluted the bright
September dawn and reminded the citizens of Buffalo
that the Messianic day was here. But they needed
no reminding. The great folk had laid out their best
clothes ; military insignia and Masonic regalia had
been furbished up. Troops guarded St. Paul's
Church and kept off the swarming crowd.
NOAH'S ARK 111
The first act of the great historic drama — " Mor-
decai Manuel Noah; or, The Redemption of Israel"
— passed off triumphantly, to the music of patriotic
American airs. The procession, which marched at
eleven from the Lodge through the chief streets, did
honour to this marshaller of stage pageants.
ORDER OF PROCESSION
Grand Marshal, Col. Potter, on horseback.
Music.
Military.
Citizens.
Civil Officers.
State Officers in Uniform.
President and Trustees of the Corporation.
Tyler.
Stewards.
Entered Apprentices.
Fellow Crafts.
Master Masons.
Senior and Junior Deacons.
Secretary and Treasurer.
Senior and Junior Wardens.
Master of Lodges.
Past Masters.
Rev. Clergy.
Stewards, with corn, wine, and oil.
Principal Architect,
Globe
with square, level,
Globe
and plumb.
Bible.
Square and Compass, borne by a Master Mason.
The Judge of Israel
In black, wearing the judicial robes of crimson silk, trimmed
with ermine, and a richly embossed golden
medal suspended from the neck.
A Master Mason.
Royal Arch Masons.
Knights Templars.
112 NOAH'S ARK
At the church door there was a halt. The troops
parted to right and left, the pageant passed through
into the crowded church, gay with the summer dresses
of the ladies, the band played the grand march from
"Judas Maccabaeus," the organ pealed out the " Jubi
late." On the communion-table lay the corner-stone
of Ararat !
The morning service was read by the Rev. Mr.
Searle in full canonicals ; the choir sang " Before
Jehovah's Awful Throne " ; then came a special
prayer for Ararat, and passages from Jeremiah,
Zephaniah, and the Psalms, charged with divine
promises and consolations for the long suffering of
Israel, idyllic pictures of the Messianic future, sym-
bolized by the silver cups with wine, corn, and oil,
that lay on the corner-stone. At last arose, with
that crimson silk robe trimmed with ermine thrown
over his stately black attire, and with the richly
embossed golden medal hanging from his neck —
the Master of the Show, the Dramatist of the Real,
the Humorist without a sense of Humour, the Dreamer
of the Ghetto and American Man of Action, the Gov-
ernor and Judge of Israel, the Shophet, — in brief,
Mordecai Manuel Noah. He delivered a great dis-
course on the history of Israel and its present re-
organization, which filled more than five columns
of the newspapers, and was heard with solemn atten-
tion by the crowded Christian audience. Save a few
Indians and his own secretary, not a single Jew was
NOAH'S ARK 113
present to hold in check the orator's oriental imagi-
nation. Then the glittering procession filed back to
the Lodge, and the brethren and the military dined
joyously at the Eagle Tavern, and Noah's wit and
humour returned for the after-dinner speech. He
withdrew early in order to write a full account of the
proceedings for the Buffalo Patriot Extra.
A salvo of twenty-four guns rounded off the great
day of Israel's restoration.
VI
Meantime Peloni on his island awaited the coming
of its Ruler. He heard faintly the cannonade that
preceded and concluded the laying of the foundation-
stone in the chancel of the church, and he expected
Noah the next day at the latest. But the next day
passed, and no Noah. Peloni fed on the remains of
his corn and drank from the river, but though his
Indian guide was gone and he was a prisoner, he
had no fear of starvation, because he saw the wig-
wams of another Indian encampment across the river
and occasionally a party of them would glide past in
a large canoe. Despite hunger, his sensations on
this first day were delicious. The poet in him re-
sponded rapturously to the appeal of all this new
life ; to feel the brotherhood of wild creatures, to
sleep under the stars in the vast night, to watch the
silent, passionate beauty of the sunrise, ripening to
the music of the birds.
114 NOAH'S ARK
On the second day his eyes were gladdened by
the oncoming of a boat rowed by two whites. They
proved to be a stone mason and his man, and they
bore provisions, a letter, and newspapers from
Noah : —
"Mv DEAR PELONI:
"A hurried line to report a glorious success, thank Heaven!
A finer day and more general satisfaction has not been known
on any similar occasion. All the dignity and talent of the neigh-
bourhood for miles was present. I hear that a vast concourse
also assembled at Tonawanda, expecting that the ceremonies
would be at Grand Island, but that many of them came up in
carriages in time to hear my Inaugural Speech. You will see
that the newspapers, especially the Buffalo Patriot Extra, nave
reported me fully, showing how they realize the importance of
this world-stirring episode in Israel's history. Their comments,
too, are for the most part highly sympathetic. Of course the
New York Herald will sneer ; but then Bennett was once in my
employ on the Courier and Enquirer. They tell me that you
duly set out to plant the flag of Judah, and I assume it is now by
God's grace waving over Ararat. Heaven bless you ! my heart
is too full for words. I had hoped to find time to-day to behold
the sublime spectacle myself, but urgent legal business calls me
back to New York. But I am resolved to start the city without
delay, and the bearers of this have my plan for a little monument
of brick and wood with the simple inscription — ' Ararat founded
by Mordecai Manuel Noah, 1825' — from the summit of which
the flag can wave. I leave you to superintend the same, and
take any measures you please to promote the growth of the city
and to receive, as my representative, the inflowing immigrants
from the Ghettos of the world. I appoint you, moreover, Keeper
of the Records. To you shall be given to write the new Book
of the Chronicles of Israel. My friend Mr. Smith, one of the
proprietors of the island, will communicate with you on behalf of
the Shareholders, as occasion arises. Expect me shortly (per-
NOAH'S ARK 115
haps with my bride, for I am entering into holy wedlock with
the most amiable and beautiful of her sex) and meantime receive
my blessing.
" MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH, Judge of Israel,
"pro A. B. SEIXAS, Seer, pro tern.'1''
While the little monument was building, and the
men were coming to and fro in boats, Peloni made
friends with the Indians, the smoke-wreaths of whose
lodges hovered across the river, and he picked up a
little of their language. Also he explored his island,
drawn by the crescendo roar of Niagara. It was at
Burnt Island Bay that he had his first, if distant, view
of the Falls themselves. The rapids, gurgling and
plunging with foam and swirl and eddy, quickened
his blood, but the cataracts disappointed him, after
that rainbow glimpse of the upper spray, and it was
not till he got himself landed on the Canadian shore
and saw the monstrous rush of the vast tameless flood
toward the great leap that he felt the presence and
the power that were to be with him for the rest of his
days. The bend of the Horse-Shoe was hidden by a
white spray mountain that rose above its topmost
waters, as they hurled themselves from green solidity
to creamy mist. And as he looked, lo ! the enchant-
ing rainbows twinkled again, and he had a sense as
of the smile of God, of the love of that awful, un-
fathomable Being, eternally persistent, while the gen-
erations rise and fall like vaporous spray.
The tide was low and, drawn by an irresistible
116 NOAH'S ARK
fascination, he adventured down among the rocks
near the foot of the Fall. But a tingling storm of
spray smote him half blind and wholly breathless,
and all he could see was a monstrous misty Brocken-
spirit upreared and in his ears were a thousand thun-
ders. A wild elemental passion swelled and lifted
him. Yes, Force, Force, was the secret of things :
the vast primal energies that sent the stars shining
and the seas roaring. Force, Life, Strength, that
was what Israel needed. It had grown anaemic,
slouching along its airless Judengassen. Oh, to fight,
to fight, like the warriors who went out against the
Greeks, who defended the Holy City against the
Romans. " For the Lord is a Man of War." And
he shouted the cry of David, " Blessed be the Lord,
my Rock, who teacheth my hands to war, and my
fingers to fight." But he stopped, smitten by an
ironic memory. This very blessing was uttered every
Sabbath twilight, in every Ghetto, by every bloodless
worshipper, to a melancholy despairing melody, in
the lightless dusk of the synagogues.
The monument was speedily erected and, being
hollow, proved useful for Peloni to sleep in, as the
October nights grew chilly. And thus Peloni lived,
a latter-day Crusoe. He had now procured fishing-
tackle, and grew dexterous in luring black bass and
perch and whitefish from the river. Also he had
found out what berries he might eat. Occasionally
a boat would sell him cornmeal from Buffalo, but his
NOAH'S ARK 117
savings were melting away and he preferred to forage
for himself, relishing the wild flavour of uncivilized
living. He even wished it were possible to eat the
birds or the rabbits he could have killed : but as
various points of Jewish law forbade such diet, there
was no use in buying a musket or a bow and arrow.
So his relations with the animal world remained
purely amicable. The robins and bluebirds and
thrushes sang for him. The woodpeckers tapped on
his monument to wake him in the morning. The
blue jays screamed without wrath, and the partridges
drummed unmartially. The squirrels frolicked with
him, and the rabbits lost their shyness. One would
have said these were the Lost Ten Tribes he had
found.
Peloni had become, not the Keeper of the Records,
but the Keeper of Noah's Ark.
VII
So winter came, and there was still nothing to re-
cord, save the witchery of the muffled white world
with its blue shadows and fantastic ice friezes and
stalactites. Great icicles glittered on the rocks, show-
ing all the hues beneath. ' Peloni, wrapped in his
blanket, crouched on his monument over a log that
burnt in an improvised grate. It was very lonely.
He had heard from no one, neither from Noah, nor
Smith, nor any Jewish or even Indian pilgrim to the
118 NOAH'S ARK
New Jerusalem, and the stock of winter provisions
had exhausted his little hoard of coin. The old de-
spair began to twine round him like some serpent of
ice. As he listened in such moods to the distant
thunder of Niagara — which waxed louder as the
air grew heavier, till it quite dominated the ever
present rumble of the rapids — the sound took on
endless meanings to his feverish brain. Now it was
no longer the voice of the Eternal Being, it was the
endless plaint of Israel beseeching the deaf heaven,
the roar of prayer from some measureless synagogue ;
now it was the raucous voice of persecution, the dull
bestial roar of malicious multitudes ; and again it was
the voice of the whole earth, groaning and travailing.
And the horror of it was that it would not stop. It
dropped on his brain, this falling water, as on the
prisoner's in the mediaeval torture chamber. Could
no one stop this turning wheel of the world, jar it
grindingly to a standstill ?
Spring wore slowly round again. The icicles
melted, the friezes dripped away, the fantastic muf-
flers slipped from the trees, and the young buds
peeped out and the young birds sang. The river
flowed uncurdled, the cataracts fell unclogged.
In Peloni's breast alone the ice did not melt : no new
sap stirred in his veins. The very rainbows on the
leaping mist were now only reminders of the Biblical
promise that the world would go on forever ; forever
the wheel would turn, and Israel wander homeless.
NOAH'S ARK 119
And at last one sunny day a boat arrived with a
message from the Master. Alas ! even Noah had
abandoned Ararat. "I am beginning to see," he
wrote, " that our only hope is Palestine. Zion alone
has magnetism for the Jew. The great war against
Gog prophesied in Ezekiel will be in Palestine. Gog
is Russia, and the Russians are the descendants of
the joint colony of Meshech and Tubal and the little
horn of Daniel. Russia in an attempt to wrest India
and Turkey from the English and the Turks will make
the Holy Land the theatre of a terrible conflict. But
yet in the end in Jerusalem shall we reerect Solo-
mon's Templei The ports of the Mediterranean
will be again open to the busy hum of commerce;
the fields will again bear the fruitful harvest, and
Christian and Jew will together, on Mount Zion,
raise their voices in praise of Him whose covenant
with Abraham was to endure forever, in whose seed
all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. This
is our destiny."
Peloni wandered automatically to the apex of the
island at Burnt Ship Bay, and stood gazing meaning-
lessly at the fragments of the sunken ships. Before
him raced the rapids, frenziedly anxious for the
great leap. Even so, he thought, had Noah and
he dreamed Israel would haste to Ararat. And
Niagara maintained its mocking roar — its roar of
gigantic laughter.
Reerect Solomon's Temple in Palestine ! A
120 NOAH'S ARK
ruined country to regenerate a ruined people ! A
land belonging to the Turks, centre of the fanati-
cisms of three religions and countless sects ! A soil
which even to Noah was the destined theatre of
world-shaking war !
As he lifted his swimming eyes he saw to his
astonishment that he was no longer alone. A tall
majestic figure stood gazing at him : a grave, sorrow-
ful Indian, feathered and tufted, habited only in
buckskin leggings, and girdled by a belt of wam-
pum. A musket in his hand showed he had been
hunting, and a canoe Peloni now saw tethered to the
bank indicated he was going back to his lodge.
Peloni knew from his talks with the Tonawanda
Indians opposite Ararat that this was Red Jacket,
the famous chief of the Iroquois, the ancient lords
of the soil. Peloni tendered the salute due to the
royalty stamped on the man. Red Jacket cere-
moniously acknowledged the obeisance. Then they
gazed silently at each other, the puny, stooping
scholar from the German Ghetto, and the stalwart,
kingly savage.
"Tell me," said Red Jacket imperiously, "what
nation are you that build a monument but never a
city like the other white men, nor even a camp like
my people ? "
" Great Chief," replied Peloni in his best Iroquois,
" we are a people that build for others."
" I would ye would build for my people then. For
NO Airs ARK 121
these white men sweep us back, farther, farther, till
there is nothing but" —and he made an eloquent
gesture, implying the sweep into the river, into the
jaws of the hurrying rapids. " Yet, methinks, I
heard of a plan of your people — of a great pow-
wow of your chiefs in a church, of a great city to be
born here."
" It is dead before birth," said Peloni.
"Strange," mused Red Jacket. "Scarce twenty
summers ago Joseph Elliott came here to plan out
his city on a soil that was not his, and lo ! this Buf-
falo rises already mighty and menacing. To-morrow
it will be at my wigwam door — and we" —another
gesture, hopeless, yet full of regal dignity, rounded
off the sentence.
And in that instant it was borne in upon Peloni
that they were indeed brothers : the Jew who stood
for the world that could not be born again, and the
Red Indian who stood for the world that must pass
away. Yes, they were both doomed. Israel had
been too bent and broken by the long dispersion and
the long persecution : the spring was snapped ; he
could not recover. He had been too long the pliant
protege of kings and popes : he had prayed too
many centuries in too many countries for the simul-
taneous welfare of too many governments, to be
capable of realizing that government of his own
for which he likewise prayed. This pious patience
— this rejection of the burden on to the shoulders
122 NOAH'S ARK
of Messiah and Miracle — was it more than the veil
of unconscious impotence ? Ah, better sweep oneself
away than endure the long ignominy. And Niagara
laughed on.
" May I have the privilege of crossing in your
canoe ? " he asked.
" You are not afraid ? " said Red Jacket. " The
rapids are dangerous here."
Afraid ! Peloni's inward laughter seemed to him-
self to match Niagara's.
When he got to the mainland, he made straight
for the Fall. He was on the American side, and he
paused on the sward, on the very brink of the tame-
less cataract, that had for immemorial ages been
driving itself backward by eating away its own rock.
His fascinated eyes watched the curious smooth,
purring slide of the vast mass of green water over
the sharp edges, unending, unresting, the eternal
revolution of a maddening, imperturbable wheel.
O that blind wheel, turning, turning, while the
generations waxed and waned, one succeeding the
other without haste or rest or possibility of pause:
creatures of meaningless majesty, shadows of
shadows, dreaming of love and justice, and fading
into the kindred mist, while this solid green cataract
roared and raced through aeons innumerable, stable
as the stars, thundering in majestic meaninglessness.
And suddenly he threw himself into its remorseless
whirl and was sucked down into the monstrous chaos
NOAH'S ARK 123
of seething waters and whirled and hurled amid the
rocks, battered and shapeless, but still holding
Noah's letter in his convulsively clinched hand, while
the rainbowed spray leapt impassively heavenward.
The corner-stone of Ararat lies in the rooms of the
Buffalo Historical Society, and no one who copies the
inscription dreams that it is the gravestone of Peloni.
And while the very monument has mouldered
away in Ararat, Buffalo sits throned amid her waters,
the Queen City of the Empire State, with the world's
commerce at her feet. And from their palaces of
Medina sandstone the Christian railroad kings go out
to sail in their luxurious yachts, — vessels not of
bulrushes but driven by steam, as predicted by Mor-
decai Manuel Noah, Governor and Judge of Israel.
IV
THE LAND OF PROMISE
IV
THE LAND OF PROMISE
I
" TELEGRAPH how many pieces you have."
In this wise did the Steamship Company convey
to the astute agent its desire to know how many
Russian Jews he was smuggling out of the Pale into
the steerage of its Atlantic liner.
The astute agent's task was simple enough. The
tales he told of America were only the clarification
of a nebulous vision of the land flowing with milk
and honey that hovered golden-rayed before all these
hungry eyes. To the denizens of the Pale, in their
cellars, in their gutter-streets, in their semi-sub-
terranean shops consisting mainly of shutters and
annihilating one another's profits ; to the congested
populations newly reinforced by the driving back of
thousands from beyond the Pale, and yet multiplying
still by an improvident reliance on Providence ; to
the old people pauperized by the removal of the
vodka business to Christian hands, and the young
people dammed back from their natural outlets by
Pan-Slavic ukases, and clogged with whimsical edicts
1-2;
128 THE LAND OF PROMISE
and rescripts — the astute agent's offer of getting
you through Germany, without even a Russian pass-
port, by a simple passage from Libau to New York,
was peculiarly alluring.
It was really almost an over-baiting of the hook
on the part of the too astute agent to whisper that
he had had secret information of a new thunderbolt
about to be launched at the Pale ; whereby the period
of service for Jewish conscripts would be extended
to fifteen years, and the area of service would be
extended to Siberia.
"Three hundred and seventy-seven pieces," ran
his telegram in reply. In a letter he suggested
other business he might procure for the line.
" Confine yourself to freight," the Company wrote
cautiously, for even under sealed envelopes you can-
not be too careful. "The more the better."
Freight ! The word was not inexact. Did not
even the Government reports describe these ex-
ploiters of the Muzhik as in some places packed in
their hovels like salt herrings in a barrel ; as sleeping
at night in serried masses in sties which by day were
tallow or leather factories ?
To be shipped as cargo came therefore natural
enough. Nevertheless, each of these "pieces," being
human after all, had a history, and one of these
histories is here told.
THE LAND OF PROMISE 129
II
Nowhere was the poverty of the Pale bitterer than
in the weavers' colony, in which Srul betrothed him-
self to Biela. The dowries, which had been wont to
kindle so many young men's passions, had fallen to
freezing-point; and Biela, if she had no near prospect
of marriage, could console herself with the know-
ledge that she was romantically loved. Even the
attraction of kest — temporary maintenance of the
young couple by the father-in-law — was wanting in
Biela's case, for the simple reason that she had no
father, both her parents having died of the effort
to get a living. For marriage-portion and kest,
Biela could only bring her dark beauty, and even
that was perhaps less than it seemed. For you
scarcely ever saw Biela apart from her homely quasi-
mother, her elder sister Leah, who, like the original
Leah, had "tender eyes," which combined with a
pock-marked face to ensure for her premature recog-
nition as an old maid. The inflamed eyelids were
the only legacy Leah's father had left her.
From Srul's side, though his parents were living,
came even fainter hope of the wedding-canopy.
Srul's father was blind — perhaps a further evidence
that the local hygienic conditions were nocuous to
the eye in particular — and Srul himself, who had
occupied most of his time in learning to weave
Rabbinic webs, had only just turned his attention to
130 THE LAND OF PROMISE
cloth, though Heaven was doubtless pleased with
the gear of Gemara he had gathered in his short
sixteen years. The old weaver had — in more than
one sense — seen better days before his affliction and
the great factories came on : days when the indepen-
dent hand-weaver might sit busily before the loom
from the raw dawn to the black midnight, taking
his meals at the bench ; days when, moreover, the
" piece " of satin-faced cloth was many ells shorter.
" But they make up for the extra length," he would say
with pathetic humour, "by cutting the pay shorter."
The same sense of humour enabled him to bear
up against the forced rests that increasing slackness
brought the hand-weavers, while the factories whirred
on. " Now is the proverb fulfilled," he cried to his
unsmiling wife, " for there are two Sabbaths a week."
Alas ! as the winter grew older and colder, it became
a week of Sabbaths. The wheels stood still ; in all
the colony not a spool was reeled. It was unpre-
cedented. Gradually the factories had stolen the
customers. Some sat waiting dazedly for the raw
yarns they knew could no longer come at this season ;
others left the suburb in which the colony had
drowsed from time immemorial, and sought odd
jobs in the town, in the frowning shadows of the
factories. But none would enter the factories them-
selves, though these were ready to suck them in on
one sole condition.
Ah ! here was the irony of the tragedy. The one
THE LAND OF PROMISE 131
condition was the one condition the poor weavers
could not accept. It was open to them to reduce the
week of Sabbaths to its ancient and diurnal dimen-
sions, provided the Sabbath itself came on Sunday.
Nay, even the working-day offered them was less,
and the wage was more than their own. The deeper
irony within this irony was that the proprietor of
every one of these factories was a brother in Israel !
Jeshurun grown fat and kicking.
Even the old blind man's composure deserted him
when it began to be borne in on his darkness that
the younger weavers meditated surrender. The
latent explosives generated through the years by
their perusal of un-Jewish books in insidious " Yid-
dish " versions, now bade fair to be touched to erup-
tion by this paraded prosperity of wickedness ; wick-
edness that had even discarded the caftan and shaved
the corners of its beard.
" But thou, apple of my eye," the old man said to
Srul, "thou wilt die rather than break the Sabbath?"
" Father," quoted the youth, with a shuddering
emotion at the bare idea, " I have been young and
now I am old, but never have I seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread."
" My son ! A true spark of the Patriarchs ! "
And the old man clasped the boy to his arms and
kissed him on the pious cheeks down which the ear-
locks dangled.
" But if Biela should tempt thee, so that thou
132
couldst have the wherewithal to marry her," put in
his mother, who could not keep her thoughts off
grandchildren.
" Not for apples of gold, mother, will I enter the
service of these serpents."
" Nevertheless, Biela is fair to see, and thou art
getting on in years," murmured the mother.
" Leah would not give Biela to a Sabbath-breaker,"
said the old man reassuringly.
" Yes, but suppose she gives her to a bread-winner,"
persisted the mother. " Do not forget that Biela is
already fifteen, only a year younger than thyself."
But Leah kept firm to the troth she had plighted
on behalf of Biela, even though the young man's
family sank lower and lower, till it was at last reduced
from the little suburban wooden cottage, with the
spacious courtyard, to one corner of a large town-
cellar, whose population became amphibious when
the Vistula overflowed.
And Srul kept firm to the troth Israel had plighted
with the Sabbath-bride, even when his father's heart
no longer beat, so could not be broken. The old
man remained to the last the most cheerful denizen
of the cellar : perhaps because he was spared the
vision of his emaciated fellow-troglodytes. He called
the cellar " Arba Kanf6s," after the four-cornered
garment of fringes which he wore : and sometimes
he said these were the " Four Corners " from which,
according to the Prophets, God would gather Israel.
THE LAND OF PROMISE 133
III
In such a state of things an agent scarcely needed
to be astute. " Pieces " were to be had for the pick-
ing up. The only trouble was that they were not
gold pieces. The idle weavers could not defray the
passage-money, still less the agent's commission for
smuggling them through.
" If I only had a few hundred roubles," Srul
lamented to Leah, " I could get to a land where there
is work without breaking the Sabbath, a land to
which Biela could follow me when I waxed in sub-
stance."
Leah supported her household of three — for there
was a younger sister, Tsirrele, who, being only nine,
did not count except at meal-times — on the price of
her piece-work at the Christian umbrella factory,
where, by a considerate Russian law, she could work
on Sunday, though the Christians might not. Thus
she earned, by literal sweating in a torrid atmosphere,
three roubles, all except a varying number of kopecks,
every week. And when you live largely on black
bread and coffee, you may, in the course of years,
save a good deal, even if you have three mouths.
Therefore, Leah had the sum that Srul mentioned so
wistfully, put by for a rainy day (when there should
be no umbrellas to make). And as the sum had kept
increasing, the notion that it might form the nucleus
of an establishment for Biela and Srul had grown
134 THE LAND OF PROMISE
clearer and clearer in her mind, which it tickled de-
lightfully. But the idea that now came to her of
staking all on a possible future was agitating.
"We might, perhaps, be able to get together the
money," she said tentatively. " But — " She
shook her head, and the Russian proverb came to
her lips. " Before the sun rises the dew may destroy
you."
Srul plunged into an eager recapitulation of the
agent's assurances. And before the eyes of both the
marriage-canopy reared itself splendid in the Land
of Promise, and the figure of Biela flitted, crowned
with the bridal wreath.
"But what will become of your mother?" Leah
asked.
Srul's soap-bubbles collapsed. He had forgotten
for the moment that he had a mother.
" She might come to live with us," Leah hastened
to suggest, seeing his o'erclouded face.
"Ah, no, that would be too much of a burden.
And Tsirrele, too, is growing up."
" Tsirrele eats quite as much now as she will in
ten years' time," said Leah, laughing, as she thought
fondly of her dear, beautiful little one, her gay whim-
sies and odd caprices.
"And my mother does not eat very much," said
Srul, wavering.
In this way Srul became a "piece," and was
dumped down in the Land of Promise.
THE LAND OF PROMISE 136
IV
To the four females left behind — odd fragments of
two families thrown into an odder one — the move-
ments of the particular piece, Srul, were the chief
interest of existence. The life in the three-roomed
wooden cottage soon fell into a routine, Leah going
daily to the tropical factory, Biela doing the house-
work and dreaming of her lover, little Tsirrele" frisk-
ing about and chattering like the squirrel she was,
and Srul's mother dozing and criticising and yearning
for her lost son and her unborn grandchildren. By
the time Srul's first letter, with its exciting pictorial
stamp, arrived from the Land of Promise, the house-
hold seemed to have been established on this basis
from time immemorial.
" I had a lucky escape, God be thanked," Srul
wrote. " For when I arrived in New York I had
only fifty-one roubles in my pocket. Now it seems
that these rich Americans are so afraid of being over-
loaded with paupers that they will not let you in, if
you have less than fifty dollars, unless you can prove
you are sure to prosper. And a dollar, my dear
Biela, is a good deal more than a rouble. However,
blessed be the Highest One, I learned of this ukase
just the day before we arrived, and was able to
borrow the difference from a fellow-passenger, who
lent me the money to show the Commissioners. Of
course, I had to give it back as soon as I was passed,
136 THE LAND OF PROMISE
and as I had to pay him five roubles for the use of
it, I set foot on the soil of freedom with only forty-
six. However, it was well worth it; for just think,
beloved Biela, if I had been shipped back and all
that money wasted ! The interpreter also said to me,
'I suppose you have got some work to do here?'
'I wish I had,' I said. No sooner had the truth
slipped out than my heart seemed turned to ice, for I
feared they would reject me after all as a poor wretch
out of work. But quite the contrary ; it seemed this
was only a trap, a snare of the fowler. Poor Camin-
ski fell into it — you remember the red-haired weaver
who sold his looms to the Maggid's brother-in-law.
He said he had agreed to take a place in a glove
factory. It is true, you know, that some Polish Jews
have made a glove town in the north, so the poor
man thought that would sound plausible. Hence
you may expect to see Caminski's red hair back
again, unless he takes ship again from Libau and
tells the truth at the second attempt. I left him
howling in a wooden pen, and declaring he would
kill himself rather than face his friends at home with
the brand on his head of not being good enough for
America. He did not understand that contract-
labourers are not let in. Protection is the word they
call it. Hence, I thank God that my father — his
memory for a blessing ! — taught me to make Truth
the law of my mouth, as it is written. Verily was
the word of the Talmud (Tractate Sabbath) fulfilled
THE LAND OF PROMISE 137
at the landing-stage : ' Falsehood cannot stay, but
truth remains forever.' With God's help, I shall
remain here all my life, for it is a land overflowing
with milk and honey. I had almost forgotten to tell
my dove that the voyage was hard and bitter as the
Egyptian bondage ; not because of the ocean, over
which I passed as easily as our forefathers over the
Red Sea, but by reason of the harshness of the over-
seers, who regarded not our complaints that the meat
was not kosher, as promised by the agent. Also the
butter and meat plates were mixed up. I arid many
with me lived on dry bread, nor could we always get
hot water to make coffee. When my Biela comes
across the great waters — God send her soon — she
must take with her salt meat of her own."
From the first, Srul courageously assumed that
the meat would soon have to be packed ; nay, that
Leah might almost set about salting it at once. Even
the slow beginnings of his profits as a peddler did
not daunt him. " A great country," he wrote on
paper stamped with the Stars and Stripes, with an
eagle screaming on the envelope. " No special taxes
for the Jews, permission to travel where you please,
the schools open freely to our children, no passports
and papers at every step, above all, no conscription.
No wonder the people call it God's own country.
Truly, as it is written, this is none other but the
House of God, this is the Gate of Heaven. And
when Biela comes, it will be Heaven." Letters like
138 THE LAND OF PROMISE
this enlarged the little cottage as with an American
room, brightened it as with a fresh wash of blue
paint. Despite the dreary grind of the week, Sab-
baths and festivals found the household joyous
enough. The wedding-canopy of Srul and Biela
was a beacon of light for all four, which made life
livable as they struggled toward it. Nevertheless,
it came but slowly to meet them : nearly three years
oozed by before Srul began to lift his eye toward a
store. The hereditary weaver of business combina-
tions had emerged tardily from beneath the logic-
weaver and the cloth-weaver, but of late he had been
finding himself. " If I could only get together five
hundred dollars clear," he wrote to Leah. " For
that is all I should have to pay down for a ladies'
store near Broadway, and just at the foot of the
stairs of the Elevated Railway. What a pity I have
only four hundred and thirty-five dollars ! Stock
and goodwill, and only five hundred dollars cash !
The other five hundred could stand over at five per
cent. If I were once in the store I could gradually
get some of the rooms above (there is already a
parlour, in which I shall sleep), and then, as soon as
I was making a regular profit, I could send Biela
and mother their passage-money, and my wife could
help 'the boss' behind the counter."
To hasten the rosy day Leah sent thirty-five
roubles, and presently, sure enough, Srul was in
possession, and a photograph of the store itself
THE LAND OF PROMISE 139
came over to gladden their weary eyes and dilate
those of the neighbours. The photograph of Srul,
which had come eighteen months before, was not so
suited for display, since his peaked cap and his
caftan had been replaced by a jacket and a bowler,
and, but for the ear-locks which were still in the
picture, he would have looked like a factory-owner.
In return, Srul received a photograph of the four —
taken together, for economy's sake — Leah with her
arm around Biela's waist, and Tsirrel6 sitting in his
mother's lap.
But a long, wearying struggle was still before the
new "boss," and two years crept along, with their
turns of luck and ill-luck, of bargains and bad debts,
ere the visionary marriage-canopy (that seemed to
span the Atlantic) began to stand solidly on Ameri-
can soil. The third year was not half over ere Srul
actually sent the money for Biela's passage, together
with a handsome " waist " from his stock, for her to
wear. But Biela was too timid to embark alone with-
out Srul's mother, whose fare Srul could not yet
manage to withdraw from his capital. Leah, of
course, offered to advance it, but Biela refused this
vehemently, because a new hope had begun to spring
up in her breast. Why should she be parted from
her family at all ? Since her marriage had been de-
layed these five and a half years, a few months more
140 THE LAND OF PROMISE
or less could make no difference. Let Leah's sav-
ings, then, be for Leah's passage (and Tsirrel£'s)
and to give her a start in the New World. " It
rains, even in America, and there are umbrella fac-
tories there, too," she urged. " You will make twice
the living. Look at Srul ! "
And there was a new fear, too, which haunted
Biela's aching heart, but which she dared not express
to Leah. Leah's eyes were getting worse. The
temperature of the factory was a daily hurt, and
then, too, she had read so many vilely printed Yid-
dish books and papers by the light of the tallow
candle. What if she were going blind? What if,
while she, Biela, was happy with Srul, Leah should
be starving with Tsirrele ? No, they must all remain
together : and she clung to her sister, with tears.
To Leah the prospect of witnessing her sister's
happiness was so seductive that she tried to take the
lowest estimate of her own chances of finding work
in New York. Her savings, almost eaten up by the
journey, could not last long, and it would be terrible
to have to come upon Srul for help, a man with a
wife and (if God were good) children, to say nothing
of his old mother. No, she could not risk Tsirr61£'s
bread.
But the increased trouble with her eyes turned her
in favour of going, though, curiously enough, for a
side reason quite unlike Biela's. Leah, too, was
afraid of a serious breakdown, though she would not
THE LAND OF PROMISE 141
hint her fears to any one else. From her miscellane-
ous Yiddish reading she had gathered that miraculous
eye-doctors lived in Konigsberg. Now a journey to
Germany was not to be thought of ; if she went to
America, however, it could be taken en route. It
would be a sort of saving, and few things appealed
to Leah as much as economy. This was why, some
four months later, the ancient furniture of the blue-
washed cottage was sold off, and the quartette set
their faces for America by way of Germany. The
farewell to the home of their youth took place in the
cemetery among the high-shouldered Hebrew-speak-
ing stones. Leah and Biela passionately invoked
the spirits of their dead parents and bade them
watch over their children. The old woman scribbled
Srul and Biela's interlinked names over the flat tomb
of a holy scholar. "Take their names up to the
Highest One," she pleaded. " Entreat that their
quiver be full, for the sake of thy righteousness."
More dead than alive, the four "pieces" with their
bundles arrived at Hamburg. Days and nights of
travelling, packed like " freight " in hard, dirty
wooden carriages, the endless worry of passports,
tickets, questions, hygienic inspections and processes,
the illegal exactions of petty officials, the strange
phantasmagoria of places and faces — all this had left
them dazed. Only two things kept up their spirits
— the image of Srul waiting on the Transatlantic
wharf in hymeneal attire, and the " pooh-pooh " of
142 THE LAND OF PROMISE
the miraculous Konigsberg doctor, reassuring Leah
as to her eyes. There was nothing radically the
matter. Even the inflamed eyelids — though in-
curable, because hereditary — would improve with
care. Peasant-like, Leah craved a lotion. " The
sea voyage and the rest will do you more good than
my medicines. And don't read so much." Not a
groschen did Leah have to pay for the great special-
ist's services. It was the first time in her hard life
anybody had done anything for her for nothing, and
her involuntary weeping over this phenomenon tended
to hurt the very eyelids under attention. They were
still further taxed by the kindness of the Jewish com-
mittee at Hamburg, on the look-out to smooth the
path of poor emigrants and overcome their dietary
difficulties. But it was a crowded ship, and our
party reverted again to " freight." With some of
the other females, they were accommodated in ham-
mocks swung over the very dining-tables, so that
they must needs rise at dawn and be cleared away
before breakfast. The hot, oily whiff of the cooking-
engines came through the rocking doorway. Of the
quartette, only Tsirre"le escaped sea-sickness, but
"baby" was too accustomed to be petted and nursed
to be able suddenly to pet and nurse, and she would
spend hours on the slip of lower deck, peering into
the fairy saloons which were vivified by bugle instead
of bell, and in which beautiful people ate dishes fit
for the saints in Heaven. By an effort of will, Leah
THE LAND OF PROMISE 143
soon returned to her role of factotum, but the old
woman and Biela remained limp to the end. For-
tunately, there was only one day of heavy rolling and
battened-down hatches. For the bulk of the voyage
the great vessel brushed the pack of waves disdain-
fully aside. And one wonderful day, amid unspeak-
able joy, New York arrived, preceded by a tug and
by a boat that conveyed inquiring officials. The
great statue of Liberty, on Bedloe's Island, upheld
its torch to light the new-comers' path. Srul — there
he is on the wharf, dear old Srul ! — God bless him !
despite his close-cropped hair and his shaven ear-
locks. Ah ! Heaven be praised ! Don't you see
him waving ? Ah, but we, too, must be content with
waving. For here only the tschinovniks of the gilded
saloon may land. The "freight" must be packed
later into rigid gangs, according to the ship's mani-
fest, transferred to a smaller steamer and discharged
on Ellis Island, a little beyond Bedloe's.
VI
And at Ellis Island a terrible thing happened, un-
foreseen— a shipwreck in the very harbour.
As the " freight " filed slowly along the corridor-
cages in the great bare hall, like cattle inspected at
ports by the veterinary surgeon, it came into the
doctor's head that Leah's eye-trouble was infectious.
"Granular lids — contagious," he diagnosed it on.
144 THE LAND OF PROMISE
paper. And this diagnosis was a flaming sword that
turned every way, guarding against Leah the Land
of Promise.
"But it is not infectious," she protested in her best
German. " It is only in the family."
" So I perceive," dryly replied America's Guardian
Angel, who was now examining the obvious sister
clinging to Leah's skirts. And in Biela, heavy-eyed
with sickness and want of sleep, his suspicious vision
easily discovered a reddish rim of eyelid that lent
itself to the same fatal diagnosis, and sent her to join
Leah in the dock of the rejected. The fresh-faced
Tsirre"le and the wizen-faced mother of Srul passed
unscrutinized, and even the dread clerk at the desk
who asked questions was content with their oath that
the wealthy Srul would support them. Srul was,
indeed, sent for at once, as Tsirrele was too pretty
to be let out under the mere protection of a Polish
crone.
When the full truth that neither she nor Biela was
to set foot in New York burst through the daze in
Leah's brain, her protest grew frantic.
" But my sister has nothing the matter with her —
nothing. O gnddiger Herr, have pity. The Konigs-
berg doctor — the great doctor — told me I had no
disease, no disease at all. And even if I have, my
sister's eyes are pure as the sunshine. Look, mein
Herr, look again. See," and she held up Biela's eye-
lids and passionately kissed the wet bewildered eyes.
THE LAND OF PROMISE 145
" She is to be married, my lamb — her bridegroom
awaits her on the wharf. Send me back, gnddiger
Herr ; I ought not to have come. But for God's
sake, don't keep Biela out, don't." She wrung her
hands. But the marriage card had been played too
often in that hall of despairing dodges. " Oh, Herr
Doktor" and she kissed the coat-tail of the ship's
doctor, " plead for us ; speak a word for her."
The ship's doctor spoke a word on his own behalf.
It was he who had endorsed the two girls' health-cer-
tificates at Hamburg, and he would be blamed by the
Steamship Company, which would have to ship the
sisters back free, and even defray their expenses
while in quarantine at the depot. He ridiculed the
idea that the girls were suffering from anything con-
tagious. But the native doctor frowned, immovable.
Leah grew hysteric. It was the first time in her
life she had lost her sane standpoint. " Your own eye
is affected," she shrieked, her dark pock-marked face
almost black with desperate anger, "if you cannot
see that it is only because my sister has been weep-
ing, because she is ill from the voyage. But she
carries no infection — she is healthy as an ox, and
her eye is the eye of an eagle ! " She was ordered
to be silent, but she shrieked angrily, " The German
doctors know, but the Americans have no Bildnng"
" Oh, don't, Leah," moaned Biela, throwing her
arms round the panting breast. " What's the use ? "
But the irrepressible Leah got an S. I. ticket of
146 THE LAND OF PROMISE
Special Inquiry, forced a hearing in the Commis-
sioners' Court.
" Let her in, kind gentlemen, and send back the
other one. Tsirr&e will go back with me. It does
not matter about the little one."
The kind gentlemen on the bench were really kind,
but America must be protected,
" You can take the young one and the old one both
back with you," the interpreter told her. " But they
are the only ones we can let in."
Leah and Biela were driven back among the damned.
The favoured twain stood helplessly in their happier
compartment Even Tsirrele, the squirrel, was
dazed. Presently the spruce Srul arrived — to find
the expected raptures replaced by funereal misery.
He wormed his way dizzily into the cage of the
rejected. It was not the etiquette of the Pale to kiss
one's betrothed bride, but Srul stared dully at Biela
without even touching her hand, as if the Atlantic
already rolled again between them. Here was a
pretty climax to the dreams of years !
" My poor Srul, we must go back to Hamburg to
be married," faltered Biela.
"And give up my store?" Srul wailed. "Here
the dollar spins round. We have now what one
names a boom. There is no land on earth like
ours."
The forlornness of the others stung Leah to her
senses.
THE LAND OF PROMISE 147
" Listen, Srul," she said hurriedly. " It is all my
fault, because I wanted to share in the happiness. I
ought not to have come. If we had not been to-
gether they never would have suspected Biela's eyes
— who would notice the little touch of inflammation
which is the most she has ever suffered from ? She
shall come again in another ship, all alone — for she
knows now how to travel. Is it not so, Biela, my
lamb ? I will see you on board, and Srul will meet
you here, although not till you have passed the
doctor, so that no one will have a chance of remem-
bering you. It will cost a heap, alas ! but I can get
some work in Hamburg, and the Jews there have
hearts of gold. Eh, Biela, my poor lamb ? "
"Yes, yes, Leah, you can always give yourself a
counsel," and Biela put her wet face to her sister's,
and kissed the pock-marked cheek.
Srul acquiesced eagerly. No one remembered for
the moment that Leah would be left alone in the
Old World. The problem of effecting the bride's
entry blocked all the horizon.
"Yes, yes," said Srul. "The mother will look
after Tsirrele", and in less than three weeks Biela will
slip in."
"No, three weeks is too soon," said Leah. "We
must wait a little longer till the doctor forgets."
" Oh, but I have already waited so long ! " whim-
pered Srul.
Leah's eyes filled with sympathetic tears. " I
148 THE LAND OF PROMISE
ought not to have made so much fuss. Now she
will stick in the doctor's mind. Forgive me, dear
Srul, I will do my best and try to make amends."
Leah and Biela were taken away to the hospital,
where they remained isolated from the world till the
steamer sailed back to Hamburg. Herein, generously
lodged, they had ample leisure to review the situa-
tion. Biela discovered that the new plan would leave
Leah deserted, Leah remembered that she would
be deserting little Tsirre"le. Both were agreed that
Tsirrele must go back with them, till they bethought
themselves that her passage would have to be paid
for, as she was not refused. And every kopeck was
precious now. " Let the child stay till I get back,"
said Biela. " Then I will send her to you."
" Yes, it is best to let her stay awhile. I myself
may be able to join you after all. I will go back to
Konigsberg, and the great doctor will write me out
a certificate that my affliction is not contagious."
At the very worst — if even Biela could not get
in — Srul should sell his store and come back to the
Old World. It would put off the marriage again.
But they had waited so long. " So let us cheer up
after all, and thank the Lord for His mercies. We
might all have been drowned on the voyage."
Thus the sisters' pious conclusion.
But though Srul and his mother and Tsirrel6 got
on board to see them off, and Tsirrele gave graphic
accounts of the wonders of the store and the rooms
THE LAND OF PROMISE 149
prepared for the bride, to say nothing of the great
city itself, and Srul brought Biela and Leah splendid
specimens of his stock for their adornment, yet it
was a horrible thing for them to go back again with-
out having once trodden the sidewalks of the Land
of Promise. And when the others were tolled off,
as by a funeral bell, and became specks in a swaying
crowd ; when the dock receded and the cheers and
good-byes faded, and the waving handkerchiefs be-
came a blur, and the Statue of Liberty dwindled, and
the lone waste of waters faced them once more,
Leah's optimism gave way, a chill sinister shadow
fell across her new plan, some ominous intuition
traversed her like a shudder, and she turned away
lest Biela should see her tears.
VII
This despair did not last long. It was not in
Leah's nature to despair. But her wildest hopes
were exceeded when she set foot again in Hamburg
and explained her hard case to the good committee,
and a member gave her an informal hint which was
like a flash of light from Heaven — its answer to her
ceaseless prayer. Ellis Island was not the only way
of approaching the Land of Promise. You could
go round about through Canada, where they were
not so particular, and you could slip in by rail from
Montreal without attracting much attention. True,
there was the extra expense.
160 THE LAND OF PROMISE
Expense! Leah would have gladly parted with
her last rouble to unite Biela with her bridegroom.
There must be no delay. A steamer for Canada
was waiting to sail. What a fool she had been not
to think that out for herself! Yes, but there was
Biela's timidity again to consider. Travel by herself
through this unknown Canada! And then if they
were not so particular, why could not Leah slip
through likewise ?
" Yes, but my eyes are more noticeable. I might
again do you an injury."
"We will separate at the landing-stage and the
frontier. We will pretend to be strangers." Biela's
wits were sharpened by the crisis.
"Well, I can only lose the passage-money," said
Leah, and resolved to take the risk. She wrote a
letter to Srul explaining the daring invasion of New
York overland which they were to attempt, and was
about to post it, when Biela said : —
" Poor Srul ! And if I shall not get in after all ! "
Leah's face fell.
" True," she pondered. " He will have a more
heart-breaking disappointment than before."
" Let us not kindle their hopes. After all, if we
get in, we shall only be a few days later than our
letter. And then think of the joy of the surprise."
"You are right, Biela," and Leah's face glowed
again with the anticipated joy of the surprise.
The journey to Canada was longer than to the
THE LAND OF PROMISE 151
States, and the "freight" was less companionable.
There were fewer Jews and women, more stalwart
shepherds, miners, and dock-labourers. When after
eleven days, land came, it was not touched at, but
only remained cheeringly on the horizon for the rest
of the voyage. At last the sisters found themselves
unmolested on one of the many wharves of Montreal.
But they would not linger a day in this unhomely
city. The next morning saw them, dazed and worn
out but happy-hearted, dodging the monstrous cata-
pults of the New York motor-cars, while a Polish
porter helped them with their bundles and convoyed
them toward Srul's store. Ah, what ecstasy to be
unregarded units of this free chaotic crowd. Out-
side the store — what a wonderful store it was,
larger than the largest in the weavers' colony ! — the
sisters paused a moment to roll the coming bliss under
their tongues. They peeped in. Ah, there is Srul
behind the counter, waiting for customers. Ah, ah,
he little knows what customers are waiting for him !
They turned and kissed each other for mere joy.
" Draw your shawl over your face," whispered
Leah merrily. " Go in and ask him if he has a
wedding-veil." Biela slipped in, brimming over with
mischief and tears.
" Yes, Miss ? " said Srul, with his smartest store
manner.
"I want a wedding-veil of white lace," she said in
Yiddish. At her voice Srul started. Biela could
152 THE LAND OF PROMISE
keep up the joke no longer. "Srul, my darling
Srul ! " she cried hysterically, her arms yearning to
reach him across the counter.
He drew back, pale, gasping for breath.
" Ah, my dear ones ! " blubbered Leah, rushing in.
" God has been good to you, after all."
"But — but — how did you get in?" he cried,
staring.
" Never mind how we got in," said Leah, every
pock-mark glistening with smiles and tears. " And
where is Tsirrele" — my dear little Tsirrele" ? "
" She — she is out marketing, with the mother."
" And the mother ? "
" She is well and happy."
"Thank God ! " said Leah fervently, and beckoned
the porter with the bundles.
" But — but I let the room," he said, flushing. " I
did not know that — I could not afford — "
" Never mind, we will find a room. The day is
yet high." She settled with the porter.
Meantime Srul had begun playing nervously with
a pair of scissors. He snipped a gorgeous piece of
stuff to fragments.
" What are you doing ? " said Biela at last.
" Oh — I — " he burst into a nervous laugh.
" And so you ran the blockade after all. But — but I
expect customers every minute — we can't talk now.
Go inside and rest, Biela : you will find a sofa in the
parlour. Leah, I want — I want to talk to you."
THE LAND OF PROMISE 163
Leah flashed a swift glance at him as Biela, vaguely
chilled, moved through the back door into the reviv-
ifying splendours of the parlour.
" Something is wrong, Srul," Leah said hoarsely.
" Tsirrele is not here. You feared to tell us."
He hung his head. " I did my best."
" She is ill — dead, perhaps ! My beautiful
angel ! "
He opened his eyes. " Dead ? No. Married ! "
" What ! To whom ? "
He turned a sickly white. ,"To me."
In all that long quest of the canopy, Leah had
never come so near fainting as now. The horror of
Ellis Island was nothing to this. That scene resurged,
and Tsirrele's fresh beauty, unflecked by the voyage,
came up luridly before her; the "baby," whom the
unnoted years had made a young woman of fifteen,
while they had been aging and staling Biela.
"But — but this will break Biela's heart," she
whispered, heart-broken.
"How was I to know Biela would ever get in ? " he
said, trying to be angry. " Was I to remain a
bachelor all my life, breaking the Almighty's ordi-
nance ? Did I not wait and wait faithfully for Biela
all those years ? "
"You could have migrated elsewhere," she said
faintly.
"And ruin my connection — and starve?" His
anger was real by now. " Besides I have married
164 THE LAND OF PROMISE
into the family — it is almost the same thing. And
the old mother is just as pleased."
" Oh, she ! " and all the endured bitterness of the
long years was in the exclamation. "All she wants
is grandchildren."
"No, it isn't," he retorted. "Grandchildren with
good eyes."
" God forgive you," was all the lump in Leah's
throat allowed her to reply. She steadied herself
with a hand on the counter, striving to repossess her
soul for Biela's sake.
A customer came in, and the tragic universe
dwindled to a prosaic place in which ribbons existed
in unsatisfactory shades.
" Of course we must go this minute," Leah said, as
Srul clanked the coins into the till. " Biela cannot
ever live here with you now."
" Yes, it is better so," he assented sulkily. " Be-
sides, you may as well know at once. I keep open
on the Sabbath, and that would not have pleased
Biela. That is another reason why it was best not to
marry Biela. Tsirrel6 doesn't seem to mind."
The very ruins of her world seemed toppling now.
But this new revelation of Tsirrele's and his own
wickedness seemed only of a piece with the first — in-
deed, went far to account for it.
" You break the Sabbath, after all ! "
He shrugged his shoulders. " We are not in
Poland any longer. No dead flies here. Everybody
THE LAND OF PROMISE 156
does it. Shut the store two days a week ! I should
get left."
" And you bring your mother's gray hairs down
with sorrow to the grave."
" My mother's gray hairs are no longer hidden by
a stupid black Shaitel. That is all. I have ex-
plained to her that America is the land of enlighten-
ment and freedom. Her eyes are opened."
"I trust to God, your father's — peace be upon
him ! — are still shut ! " said Leah as she walked
with slow steady steps into the parlour, to bear off
her v/ounded lamb.
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
THE older Isaac Levinsky grew, and the more he saw
of the world after business hours, the more ashamed he
grew of the Russian Rabbi whom Heaven had curi-
ously chosen for his father. At first it seemed natural
enough to shout and dance prayers in the stuffy little
Spitalfields synagogue, and to receive reflected glory as
the son and heir of the illustrious Maggid (preacher)
whose four hour expositions of Scripture drew even
West End pietists under the spell of their celestial
crookedness. But early in Isaac's English school-life
— for cocksure philanthropists dragged the younger
generation to anglicization — he discovered that other
fathers did not make themselves ridiculously notice-
able by retaining the gabardine, the fur cap, and the
ear-locks of Eastern Europe : nay, that a few — O,
enviable sons ! — could scarcely be distinguished from
the teachers themselves.
When the guardian angels of the Ghetto appren-
ticed him, in view of his talent for drawing, to a litho-
graphic printer, he suffered agonies at the thought of
his grotesque parent coming to sign the indentures.
159
160 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
" You might put on a coat to-morrow," he begged
in Yiddish.
The Maggid's long black beard lifted itself slowly
from the worm-eaten folio of the Babylonian Talmud,
in which he was studying the tractate anent the pay-
ment of the half-shekel head-tax in ancient Palestine.
" If he took the money from the second tithes or from
the Sabbatical year fruit," he was humming in his
quaint sing-song, " he must eat the full value of the
same in the city of Jerusalem." As he encountered
his boy's querulous face his dream city vanished, the
glittering temple of Solomon crumbled to dust, and
he remembered he was in exile.
" Put on a coat ? " he repeated gently. " Nay, thou
knowest 'tis against our holy religion to appear like
the heathen. I emigrated to England to be free to
wear the Jewish dress, and God hath not failed to
bless me."
Isaac suppressed a precocious " Damn ! " He had
often heard the story of how the cruel Czar Nicholas
had tried to make his Jews dress like Christians, so as
insidiously to assimilate them away ; how the police
had even pulled off the unsightly cloth-coverings of
the shaven polls of the married women, to the secret
delight of the pretty ones, who then let their hair grow
in godless charm. And, mixed up with this story,
were vaguer legends of raw recruits forced by their
sergeants to kneel on little broken stones till they per-
ceived the superiority of Christianity
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 161
How the Maggid would have been stricken to the
heart to know that Isaac now heard these legends
with inverted sympathies !
" The blind fools ! " thought the boy, with ever
growing bitterness. " To fancy that religion can lie
in clothes, almost as if it was something you could
carry in your pockets ! But that's where most of their
religion does lie— -in their pocket." And he shud-
dered with a vision of greasy, huckstering fanatics.
"And just imagine if I was sweet on a girl, having to
see all her pretty hair cut off! As for those recruits,
it served them right for not turning Christians. As
if Judaism was any truer ! And the old man never
thinks of how he is torturing me — all the sharp little
stones he makes me kneel on." And, looking into the
future with the ambitious eye of conscious cleverness,
he saw the paternal gabardine over-glooming his life.
II
One Friday evening — after Isaac had completed
his 'prentice years — there was anxiety in the Maggid's
household in lieu of the Sabbath peace. Isaac's seat
at the board was vacant. The twisted loaves seemed
without salt, the wine of the consecration cup with-
out savour.
The mother was full of ominous explanations.
" Perturb not the Sabbath," reproved the gabar-
dined saint gently, and quoted the Talmud : " ' No
162 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
man has a finger maimed but 'tis decreed from
above."
"Isaac has gone to supper somewhere else," sug-
gested his little sister, Miriam.
" Children and fools speak the truth," said the
Maggid, pinching her cheek.
But they had to go to bed without seeing him, as
though this were only a profane evening, and he
amusing himself with the vague friends of his litho-
graphic life. They waited till the candles flared out,
and there seemed something symbolic in the gloom
in which they groped their way upstairs. They
were all shivering, too, for the fire had become gray
ashes long since, the Sabbath Fire- Woman having
made her last round at nine o'clock and they them-
selves being forbidden to touch even a candlestick or
a poker.
The sunrise revealed to the unclosed eyes of the
mother that her boy's bed was empty. It also
showed — what she might have discovered the night
before had religion permitted her to enter his room
with a light — that the room was empty, too : empty
of his scattered belongings, of his books and
sketches.
" God in Heaven ! " she cried.
Her boy had run away.
She began to wring her hands and wail with
oriental amplitude, and would have torn her hair
had it not been piously replaced by a black wig,
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 163
neatly parted in the middle and now grotesquely
placid amid her agonized agitation.
The Maggid preserved more outward calm. " Per-
haps we shall find him in synagogue," he said,
trembling.
" He has gone away, he will never come back.
Woe is me ! "
" He has never missed the Sabbath service ! " the
Maggid urged. But inwardly his heart was sick
with the fear that she prophesied truly. This Eng-
land, which had seduced many of his own congre-
gants to Christian costume, had often seemed to him
to be stealing away his son, though he had never let
himself dwell upon the dread. His sermon that
morning was acutely exegetical : with no more rela-
tion to his own trouble than to the rest of contem-
porary reality. His soul dwelt in old Jerusalem, and
dreamed of Israel's return thither in some vague
millennium. When he got home he found that the
postman had left a letter. His wife hastened to
snatch it.
" What dost thou? " he cried. " Not to-day. When
Sabbath is out."
" I cannot wait. It is from him — it is from
Isaac."
" Wait at least till the Fire- Woman comes to open
it."
For answer the mother tore open the envelope.
It was the boldest act of her life — her first breach
164 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
with the traditions. The Rabbi stood paralyzed by
it, listening, as without conscious will, to her sobbing
delivery of its contents.
The letter was in Hebrew (for neither parent
could read English), and commenced abruptly, with-
out date, address, or affectionate formality. "This
is the last time I shall write the holy tongue. My
soul is wearied to death of Jews, a blind and ungrate-
ful people, who linger on when the world no longer
hath need of them, without country of their own,
nor will they enter into the blood of the countries
that stretch out their hands to them. Seek not to
find me, for I go to a new world. Blot out my name
even as I shall blot out yours. Let it be as though
I was never begotten."
The mother dropped the letter and began to
scream hysterically. " I who bore him ! I who bore
him ! "
" Hold thy peace ! " said the father, his limbs
shaking but his voice firm. "He is dead. 'The
Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be
the name of the Lord.' To-night we will begin to
sit the seven days' mourning. But to-day is the
Sabbath."
" My Sabbath is over for aye. Thou hast driven
my boy away with thy long prayers."
" Nay, God hath taken him away for thy sins,
thou godless Sabbath-breaker ! Peace while I make
the Consecration."
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 165
" My Isaac, my only son ! We shall say Kaddish
(mourning-prayer) for him, but who will say Kaddish
for us ? "
" Peace while I make the Consecration ! "
He got through with the prayer over the wine,
but his breakfast remained untasted.
Ill
Re-reading the letter, the poor parents agreed that
the worst had happened. The allusions to "blood "
and "the new world" seemed unmistakable. Isaac
had fallen under the spell of a beautiful heathen
female ; he was marrying her in a church and emi-
grating with her to America. Willy-nilly, they must
blot him out of their lives.
And so the years went by, over-brooded by this
shadow of living death. The only gleam of happi-
ness came when Miriam was wooed and led under the
canopy by the President of the congregation, who
sold haberdashery. True, he spoke English well and
dressed like a clerk, but in these degenerate days
one must be thankful to get a son-in-law who shuts
his shop on the Sabbath.
One evening, some ten years after Isaac's dis-
appearance, Miriam sat reading the weekly paper —
which alone connected her with the world and the
fulness thereof — when she gave a sudden cry.
"What is it? " said the haberdasher.
166 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
" Nothing — I thought — " And she stared again
at the rough cut of a head embedded in the reading
matter.
But no, it could not be !
"Mr. Ethelred P. Wyndhurst, whose versatile
talents have brought him such social popularity, is
rumoured to have budded out in a new direction.
He is said to be writing a comedy for Mrs. Donald
O'Neill, who, it will be remembered, sat to him
recently for the portrait now on view at the Azure
Art Club. The dashing comedienne will, it is stated,
produce the play in the autumn season. Mr. Wynd-
hurst's smart sayings have often passed from mouth
to mouth, but it remains to be seen whether he can
make them come naturally from the mouths of his
characters."
What had these far-away splendours to do with
Isaac Levinsky ? With Isaac and his heathen female
across the Atlantic ?
And yet — and yet Ethelred P. Wyndhurst was
like Isaac — that characteristic curve of the nose,
those thick eyebrows ! And perhaps Isaac had
worked himself up into a portrait-painter. Why
not ? Did not his old sketch of herself give distinc-
tion to her parlour? Her heart swelled proudly at
the idea. But no ! more probably the face in print
was roughly drawn — was only accidentally like her
brother. She sighed and dropped the paper.
But she could not drop the thought. It clung to
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 167
her, wistful and demanding satisfaction. The name
of Ethelred P. Wyndhurst, whenever it appeared in
the paper — and it was surprising how often she
saw it now, though she had never noticed it before —
made her heart beat with the prospect of clews.
She bought other papers, merely in the hope of see-
ing it, and was not unfrequently rewarded. Involun-
tarily, her imagination built up a picture of a brilliant
romantic career that only needed to be signed
" Isaac." She began to read theatrical and society
journals on the sly, and developed a hidden life of
imaginative participation in fashionable gatherings.
And from all this mass of print the name Ethelred
P. Wyndhurst disengaged itself with lurid brilliancy.
The rumours of his comedy thickened. It was
christened The Sins of Society. It was to be put
on soon. It was not written yet. Another manager
had bid for it. It was already in rehearsal. It was
called The Bohemian Boy, It would not come on
this season. Miriam followed feverishly its contra-
dictory career. And one day there was a large
picture of Isaac ! Isaac to the life ! She soared
skywards. But it adorned an interview, and the
interview dropped her from the clouds. Ethelred
was born in Brazil of an English engineer and a
Spanish beauty, who performed brilliantly on the
violin. He had shot big game in the Rocky Moun-
tains, and studied painting in Rome.
The image of her rriother playing the violin, in
168 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
her preternaturally placid wig, brought a bitter
smile to Miriam's lips. And yet it was hard to give
up Ethelred now. It seemed like losing Isaac a
second time. And presently she reflected shrewdly
that the wig and the gabardine wouldn't have shown
up well in print, that indeed Isaac in his farewell
letter had formally renounced them, and it was
therefore open to him to invent new parental acces-
sories. Of course — fool that she was ! — how could
Ethelred P. Wyndhurst acknowledge the same child-
hood as Isaac Levinsky ! Yes, it might still be her
Isaac.
Well, she would set the doubt at rest. She knew,
from the wide reading to which Ethelred had stimu-
lated her, that authors appeared before the curtain
on first nights. She would go to the first night of
The Whirligig (that was the final name), and win
either joy or mental rest.
She made her expedition to the West End on
the pretext of a sick friend in Bow, and waited
many hours to gain a good point of view in the
first row of the gallery, being too economical to
risk more than a shilling on the possibility of re-
lationship to the dramatist.
As the play progressed, her heart sank. Though
she understood little of the conversational para-
doxes, it seemed to her — now she saw with her
physical eye this brilliant Belgravian world, in the
stalls as well as on the stage — that it was impos-
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 169
sible her Isaac could be of it, still less that it could
be Isaac's spirit which marshalled so masterfully
these fashionable personages through dazzling draw-
ing-rooms ; and an undercurrent of satire against
Jews who tried to get into society by bribing the
fashionables, contributed doubly to chill her. She
shared in the general laughter, but her laugh was
one of hysterical excitement.
But when at last amid tumultuous cries of " Au-
thor ! " Isaac Levinsky really appeared, — Isaac,
transformed almost to a fairy prince, as noble a
figure as any in his piece, Isaac, the proved master-
spirit of the show, the unchallenged treader of all
these radiant circles, — then all Miriam's effervescing
emotion found vent in a sobbing cry of joy.
" Isaac ! " she cried, stretching out her arms
across the gallery bar.
But her cry was lost in the applause of the house.
IV
She wrote to him, care of the theatre. The first
envelope she had to tear up because it was inad-
vertently addressed to Isaac Levinsky.
Her letter was a gush of joy at finding her dear
Isaac, of pride in his wonderful position. Who
would have dreamed a lithographer's apprentice
would arrive at leading the fashions among the
nobility and gentry ? But she had always believed
170 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
in his talents ; she had always treasured the water-
colour he had made of her, and it hung in the par-
lour behind the haberdasher's shop into which she
had married. He, too, was married, they had
imagined, and gone to America. But perhaps he
was married, although in England. Would he not
tell her ? Of course, his parents had cast him out
of their hearts, though she had heard mother call
out his name in her sleep. But she herself thought
of him very often, and perhaps he would let her
come to see him. She would come very quietly
when the grand people were not there, nor would
she ever let out that he was a Jew, or not born
in Brazil. Father was still pretty strong, thank
God, but mother was rather ailing. Hoping to see
him soon, she remained his loving Miriam.
She waited eagerly for his answer. Day followed
day, but none came.
When the days passed into weeks, she began to
lose hope ; but it was not till The Whirligig, which
she followed in the advertisement columns, was
taken off after a briefer run than the first night
seemed to augur, that she felt with curious con-
clusiveness that her letter would go unanswered.
Perhaps even it had miscarried. But it was now
not difficult to hunt out Ethelred P. Wyndhurst's
address, and she wrote him anew.
Still the same wounding silence. After the lapse
of a month, she understood that what he had writ-
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 171
ten in Hebrew was final; that he had cut himself
free Qnce and forever from the swaddling coils
of gabardine, and would not be dragged back even
within touch of its hem. She wept over her sec-
ond loss of him, but the persistent thought of him
had brought back many tender childish images, and
it seemed incredible that she would never really
creep into his life again. He had permanently en-
larged her horizon, and she continued to follow his
career in the papers, worshipping it as it loomed
grandiose through her haze of ignorance. Gradu-
ally she began to boast of it in her more English
circles, and so in course of time it became known
to all but the parents that the lost Isaac was a
shining light in high heathendom, and a vast secret
admiration mingled with the contempt of the Ghetto
for Ethelred P. Wyndhurst.
In high heathendom a vast secret contempt min-
gled with the admiration for Ethelred P. Wyndhurst.
He had, it is true, a certain vogue, but behind his
back he was called a Jew. He did not deserve the
stigma in so far as it might have implied financial
prosperity. His numerous talents had only availed
to prevent one another from being seriously culti-
vated. He had had a little success at first with flam-
boyant pictures, badly drawn, and well paragraphed ;
172 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
he had written tender verses for music, and made
quiet love to ugly and unhappy society ladies ; he
was an assiduous first-nighter, and was suspected of
writing dramatic criticisms, even of his own comedy.
And in that undefined social segment where Ken-
sington and Bohemia intersect, he was a familiar
figure (a too familiar figure, old fogies grumbled)
with an unenviable reputation as a diner-out — for
the sake of the dinner.
Yet some of the people who called him "sponge"
were not averse from imbibing his own liquids when
he himself played the gracious host. He was ap-
pearing in that r61e one Sunday evening before a
motley assembly in his dramatically furnished studio,
nay, he was in the very act of biting into a sandwich
scrupulously compounded with ham, when a tele-
gram was handed to him.
"Another of those blessed actresses crying off,"
he said. " I wonder how they ever manage to take
up their cues ! "
Then his face changed as he hurriedly crumpled
up the pinkish paper.
" Mother is dying. No hope. She cries to see
you. Have told her you are in London. Father
consents. Come at once. — MIRIAM."
He put the crumpled paper to the gas and lit a
new cigarette with it.
"As I thought," he said, smiling. "When a
woman is an actress as well as a woman — "
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 173
VI
After his wife died — vainly calling for her Isaac
— the old Maggid was left heart-broken. It was as
if his emotions ran in obedient harmony with the
dictum of the Talmud : " Whoso sees his first wife's
death is as one who in his own day saw the Temple
destroyed."
What was there for him in life now but the ruins
of the literal Temple ? He must die soon, and the
dream that had always haunted the background of
his life began to come now into the empty fore-
ground. If he could but die in Jerusalem !
There was nothing of consequence for him to do
in England. His Miriam was married and had grown
too English for any real communion. True, his con-
gregation was dear to him, but he felt his powers
waning : other Maggidim were arising who could
speak longer.
To see and kiss the sacred soil, to fall prostrate
where once the Temple had stood, to die in an ecs-
tasy that was already Gan-Iden (Paradise) — could
life, indeed, hold such bliss for him, life that had
hitherto proved a cup of such bitters ?
Life was not worth living, he agreed with his long-
vanished brother-Rabbis in ancient Babylon, it was
only a burden to be borne nobly. But if life was not
worth living, death — in Jerusalem — was worth dy-
ing. Jerusalem ! to which he had turned three
174 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
times a day in praying, whose name was written on
his heart, as on that of the mediaeval Spanish singer,
with whom he cried : —
" Who will make to me wings that I may fly ever Eastward,
Until my ruined heart shall dwell in the ruins of thee?
Then will I bend my face to thy sacred soil and hold precious
Thy very stones, yea e'en to thy dust shall I tender be.
" Life of the soul is the air of thy land, and myrrh of the purest
Each grain of thy dust, thy waters sweetest honey of the comb.
Joyous my soul would be. could I even naked and barefoot,
Amid the holy ruins of thine ancient Temple roam,
Where the Ark was shrined, and the Cherubim in the Oracle
had their home."
To die in Jerusalem ! — that were success in life.
Here he was lonely. In Jerusalem he would be
surrounded by a glorious host. Patriarchs, prophets,
kings, priests, rabbonim — they all hovered lovingly
over its desolation, whispering heavenly words of
comfort.
But now a curious difficulty arose. The Maggid
knew from correspondence with Jerusalem Rabbis
that a Russian subject would have great difficulty in
slipping in at Jaffa or Beyrout, even aided by bakh-
shisJi. The only safe way was to enter as a British
subject. Grotesque irony of the fates! For nigh
half a century the old man had lived in England in
his gabardine, and now that he was departing to die in
gabardine lands, he was compelled to seek naturaliza-
tion as a voluntary Englishman ! He was even com-
I
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM J76
pelled to account mendaciously for his sudden desire
to identify himself with John Bull's institutions and
patriotic prejudices, and to live as a free-born Eng-
lishman. By the aid of a rich but pious West End
Jew, who had sometimes been drawn Eastwards by
the Maggid's exegetical eloquence, all difficulties
were overcome. Armed with a passport, signed
floridly as with a lion's tail rampant, the Maggid —
after a quasi-death-bed blessing to Miriam by imposi-
tion of hands from the railway-carriage window upon
her best bonnet — was whirled away toward his holy
dying- place.
VII
Such disappointment as often befalls the visionary
when he sees the land of his dreams was spared to
the Maggid, who remained a visionary even in the pres-
ence of the real ; beholding with spiritual eye the ref-
use-laden alleys and the rapacious Sclmorrcrs (beggars).
He lived enswathed as with heavenly love, waiting
for the moment of transition to the shining World-
To-Come, and his supplications at the Wailing Wall
for the restoration of Zion's glory had, despite their
sympathetic fervour, the peaceful impersonality of
one who looks forward to no worldly kingdom. To
outward view he lived — in the rare intervals when
he was not at a synagogue or a house-of-learning —
somewhere up a dusky staircase in a bleak, narrow
court, in one tiny room supplemented by a kitchen in
176 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
the shape of a stove on the landing, itself a centre of
pilgrimage to Schnorrers innumerable, for whom the
rich English Maggid was an unexpected windfall.
Rich and English were synonymous in hungry Jeru-
salem, but these beggars' notion of charity was so
modest, and the coin of the realm so divisible, that
the Maggid managed to gratify them at a penny a
dozen. At uncertain intervals he received a letter
from Miriam, written in English. The daughter had
not carried on the learned tradition of the mother,
and so the Maggid was wont tp have recourse to the
head of the philanthropic technical school for the
translation of her news into Hebrew. There was,
however, not much of interest ; Miriam's world had
grown too alien : she could scrape together little to
appeal to the dying man. And so his last ties with
the past grew frailer and frailer, even as his body
grew feebler and feebler, until at last, bent with
great age and infirmity, so that his white beard swept
the stones, he tottered about the sacred city like an
incarnation of its holy ruin. He seemed like one
bent over the verge of eternity, peering wistfully into
its soundless depths. Surely God would send his
Death- Angel now.
Then one day a letter from Miriam wrenched him
back violently from his beatific vision, jerked him
back to that other eternity of the dead past.
Isaac, Isaac had come home ! Had come home to
find desolation. Had then sought his sister, and was
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 177
now being nursed by her through his dying hours.
His life had come to utter bankruptcy : his posses-
sions — by a cruel coincidence — had been sold up at
the very moment that the doctors announced to him
that he was a doomed man. And his death-bed was
a premature hell of torture and remorse. He raved
incessantly for his father. Would he not annul the
curse, grant him his blessing, promise to say Kaddish
for his soul, that he might be saved from utter dam-
nation ? Would he not send his forgiveness by re-
turn, for Isaac's days were numbered, and he could
not linger on more than a month or so ?
The Maggid was terribly shaken. He recalled
bitterly the years of suffering, crowned by Isaac's
brutal heedlessness to the cry of his dying mother :
but the more grievous the boy's sin, the more awful
the anger of God in store for him.
And the mother — would not her own Gan-Iden
be spoilt by her boy's agonizing in hell ? For her
sake he must forgive his froward offspring ; perhaps
God would be more merciful, then. The merits of
the father counted : he himself was blessed beyond
his deserts by the merits of the Fathers — of Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob. He had made the pilgrimage
to Jerusalem ; perhaps his prayers would be heard at
the Mercy-Seat.
With shaking hand the old man wrote a letter to
his son, granting him a full pardon for the sin against
himself, but begging him to entreat God day and
178 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
night. And therewith an anthology of consoling
Talmudical texts : " A man should pray for Mercy
even till the last clod is thrown upon his grave . . .
For Repentance and Prayer and Charity avert the
Evil Decree." The Charity he was himself distribut-
ing to the startled Schnorrers.
The schoolmaster wrote out the envelope, as usual,
but the Maggid did not post the letter. The image
of his son's death-bed was haunting him. Isaac
called to him in the old boyish tones. Could he let
his boy die there without giving him the comfort of
his presence, the visible assurance of his forgiveness,
the touch of his hands upon his head in farewell
blessing ? No, he must go to him.
But to leave Jerusalem at his age ? Who knew if
he would ever get back to die there ? If he should
miss the hope of his life ! But Isaac kept calling to
him — and Isaac's mother. Yes, he had strength for
the journey. It seemed to come to him miraculously,
like a gift from Heaven and a pledge of its mercy.
He journeyed to Bey rout, and after a few days
took ship for Marseilles.
VIII
Meantime in the London Ghetto the unhappy
Ethelred P. Wyndhurst found each day a year. He
was in a rapid consumption : a disorderly life had
told as ruinously upon his physique as upon his
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 179
finances. And with this double collapse had come a
strange irresistible resurgence of early feelings and
forgotten superstitions. The avenging hand was
heavy upon him in life, — what horrors yet awaited
him when he should be laid in the cold grave ? The
shadow of death and judgment over-brooded him,
clouding his brain almost to insanity.
There would be no forgiveness for him — his
father's remoteness had killed his hope of that. It
was the nemesis, he felt, of his refusal to come to his
dying mother. God had removed his father from his
pleadings, had wrapped him in an atmosphere holy
and aloof. How should Miriam's letter penetrate
through the walls of Jerusalem, pierce through the
stonier heart hardened by twenty years of desertion !
And so the day after she had sent it, the spring
sunshine giving him a spurt of strength and courage,
a desperate idea came to him. If he could go to
Jvusalem himself ! If he could fall upon his father's
neck, and extort his blessing !
And then, too, he would die in Jerusalem !
Some half-obliterated text sounded in his ears :
" And the land shall forgive sin."
He managed to rise — his betaking himself to bed,
he found, as the sunshine warmed him, had been
mere hopelessness and self-pity. Let him meet
Death standing, aye, journeying to the sun-lands.
Nay, when Miriam, getting over the alarm of his up-
rising, began to dream of the Palestine climate curing
180 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM
him, he caught a last flicker of optimism, spoke artis-
tically of the glow and colour of the East, which he
had never seen, but which he might yet live to
render on canvas, winning a new reputation. Yes,
he would start that very day. Miriam pledged her
jewellery to supply him with funds, for she dared not
ask her husband to do more for the stranger.
But long before Ethelred P. Wyndhurst reached
Jaffa he knew that only the hope of his father's
blessing was keeping him alive.
Somewhere at sea the ships must have passed each
other.
IX
When the gabardined Maggid reached Miriam's
house, his remains of strength undermined by the
long journey, he was nigh stricken dead on the door-
step by the news that his journey was vain.
"It is the will of God," he said hopelessly. The
sinner was beyond mercy. He burst into sobs and
tears ran down his pallid cheeks and dripped from
his sweeping white beard.
"Thou shouldst have let us know," said Miriam
gently. " We never dreamed it was possible for thee
to come."
" I came as quickly as a letter could have an-
nounced me."
" But thou shouldst have cabled."
" Cabled ? " The process had never come within
TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 181
his ken. " But how should I dream he could travel ?
Thy letter said he was on his death-bed. I prayed
God I might but arrive in time."
He was for going back at once, but Miriam put
him to bed — the bed Isaac should have died in.
" Thou canst cable thy forgiveness, at least," she
said, and so, without understanding this new miracle,
he bade her ask the schoolmaster to convey his for-
giveness to his son.
" Isaac will inquire for me, if he arrives alive," he
said. " The schoolmaster will hear of him. It is a
very small place, alas ! for God hath taken away its
glory by reason of our sins."
The answer came the same afternoon. " Message
just in time. Son died peacefully."
The Maggid rent his bed-garment. " Thank God ! "
he cried. " He died in Jerusalem. Better he than
I ! Isaac died in Jerusalem ! God will have mercy
on his soul."
Tears of joy sprang to his bleared eyes. " He died
in Jerusalem," he kept murmuring happily at in-
tervals. " My Isaac died in Jerusalem."
Three days later the Maggid died in London.
VI
BETHULAH
VI
BETHULAH
THE image of her so tragically trustful in that
mountain village of Bukowina still haunts my
mind, and refuses to be exorcised, as of yore, by
the prose of life. One who is very dear to me
advises driving her out at the point of the pen.
Whether such recording of my life's strangest
episode will lay these memories or not, the story
itself may at least instruct my fellow-Jews in New
York how variously their religion has manifested
itself upon this perplexing planet. Doubtless many
are still as ignorant as I was respecting their
mediaeval contemporaries in Eastern Europe. True,
they have now opportunities in their own Ghetto —
which is, for cosmopolitanism, a New York within
a New York — of studying strata from other epochs
of Judaism spread out on the same plane of time
as their own, even as upon the white sheet of that
wonderful invention my aged eyes have lived to
see, sequent events may be pictured simultaneously.
In my youth these opportunities did not exist. Only
in Baltimore and a few of the great Eastern cities
185
186 BETHULAH
was there any aggregation of Jews, and these were
all — or wanted to be — good Yankees ; while be-
yond the Mississippi, where my father farmed and
hunted like a Christian, and where you might have
scoured a thousand square miles to get minyan
(ten Jews for worship), our picturesque customs
and ceremonies dwindled away from sheer absence
of fellowship. My father used to tell of a bronzed
trapper he breakfasted with on the prairie, who
astonished him by asking him over their bacon if
he were a Jew. " Yes," said my father. " Shake ! "
said the trapper. "You're the first fellow-Jew I've
met for twenty years." Though in my childhood my
father taught me the Hebrew he had brought from
Europe, and told me droll Jewish stories in his
native German, it will readily be understood that
the real influences I absorbed were the great
American ideals of liberty and humanity, eman-
cipation and enlightenment, and that therefore the
strange things I witnessed among the Carpathians
were far more startling to me than they can be to
the Jews of to-day upon whom the Old World has
poured its archaic inhabitants. Nevertheless, I can-
not but think that even those who have met strange
drifts of sects in New York will be astonished by
the tradition which I stumbled upon so blindly in
my first European tour. For, so far as I can
gather, the Zloczszol legend is unique in Jewish
history and confined exclusively to this out-of-
BETHULAH 187
«
the-way corner, however near other heresies may
have approached to some of the underlying con-
ceptions. My landlord Yarchi's view that it was
a mere piece of local commercial myth-making, a
gross artifice, would have at least the merit of ex-
plaining this uniqueness. It has, in my eyes, no
other.
This tour of mine was to make not a circle, but
a half -circle, for, landing at Hamburg I was to re-
turn by the Baltic, after a circuit through Berlin,
Prague, Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Lemberg, (where my
grandfather had once been a rabbi of considera-
tion), Moscow, and St. Petersburg. I did not linger
at Hamburg; purchasing a stout horse, I started
on my long ride. Of course it did not seem so
long to me — who had already ridden from Kansas
to both of our seaboards — as it would to a young
gentleman of to-day accustomed to parlour cars,
though the constant change of dialects and foods
was somewhat unsettling.
But money speaks all languages, and a good
Western stomach digests all diets. Bad water,
however, no stomach can cope with ; and I was
laid up at Prague with a fever, which left me too
weak to hurry on. I rambled about the Ghetto —
the Judenstadt — which gave me my first insight
into mediaeval Judaism, and was fascinated by the
quaint alleys and houses, the Jewish town-hall,
and the cellarlike Alt-Neu synagogue with its
188 BETHULAH
miraculous history of unnumbered centuries. I
heard the story of the great red flag on the
pillar, with its " shield of David " and the Swede's
hat, and was shown on the walls the spatterings
of the blood of the martyrs of 1389.
What emotions I had in the old graveyard — a
Ghetto of the dead — where the graves were hud-
dled together, three and four deep, and the very
tombstones and corpses had undergone Ghetto
persecution ! A whole new world opened out to
me, crooked as the Ghetto alleys — so alien from
the free life of the flowering prairies — as I walked
about this " Judengarten," studying the Hebrew
inscriptions and the strange symbolic sculptures —
the Priest's hands of blessing, the Levite's ewer,
the Israelites' bunch of grapes, the Virgin with
roses — and trying to reconstruct the life these
dead had lived. Strange ancestral memories seemed
thrilling through me, helping me to understand.
Many stories did I hear, too, of the celebrated
Rabbi Low, and of the golem he created, which
brought him his meals : in sign whereof I was
shown his grave, and his house marked with a
lion on a blue background. I listened with Ameri-
can incredulity but hereditary sympathy. I was
astonished to find men who still believed in a cer-
tain Sabbata'f Zevi, Messiah of the Jews, and one
showed me a Sabbatian prayer-book with a tur-
baned head of this Redeemer side by side with
BETHULAH 189
King David's, and another who scoffed at this
seventeenth-century impostor, yet told me the
tradition in his own family, how they had sold their
business and were about to start for Palestine,
when the news reached them that so far from de-
posing the Sultan, this Redeemer of Israel had
become his doorkeeper and a Mohammedan.
The year was passing toward the Fall ere I got
to Buda-Pesth (in those days the enchanted gate-
way of the Orient, resounding with gypsy music,
and not the civilized capital I found it the other
day), and I had not proceeded far on the northerly
bend of my journey when, soon after crossing the
Carpathians, I was imprisoned in the mountain
village of Zloczszol by the sudden overflow of the
Dniester. The village itself was sheltered from
the floods by a mountain between it and the tribu-
tary of the Dniester; but all the roads northward
were impassable, and the water came round by
clefts and soused our bordering fields and oozed
very near the maize-garden of Yarchi's pine cottage,
to which I had removed from the dirty inn, where
a squalling baby in a cradle had shared the private
sitting-room. It was a very straggling village,
which began to straggle at the mountain-foot, but,
for fear of avalanches, I was told, the houses did
not grow companionable till some half a mile down
the plain.
In the centre of the village was a cobble-paved
190 BETHULAH
" Ring-Place" and market-place, on which gave a
few streets of shops (the provision-shops bene-
fiting hugely by the floods, which made imports
difficult). It was a Jewish colony, with the ex-
ception of a few outlying farms, whose peasants
brought touches of gorgeous colour into the pro-
cession of black gabardines. It was strange to
me to live in a place in which every door-post
bore a Mezusah. It gave me a novel sense of
being in a land of Israel, and sometimes I used to
wonder how these people could feel such a sense
of local patriotism as seemed to possess them.
And yet I reflected that, like the giant cedar of Leb-
anon which rose from the plain in such strange
contrast with the native trees of Zloczszol, Israel
could be transplanted everywhere, and was made
of as enduring and undying a wood — nay, that,
even like this cedar-wood, it had strange properties
of conserving other substances and arresting putre-
faction. Hence its ubiquitous patriotism was uni-
versally profitable. Nevertheless, this was one of
the surprises of my journey — to find Jews speak-
ing every language under the European sun, re-
garding themselves everywhere as part of the soil,
and often patriotic to the point of resenting immi-
grant Jews as foreigners. I myself was popularly
known as "the Stranger," though I was not re-
sented, because the couple of dollars at which I
purchased the privilege of "ark-opening" on my
BETHULAH 191
first visit to the synagogue — a little Gothic build-
ing standing in a court-yard — gave me a further
reputation as "the rich stranger." Once I blushed
to overhear myself called "the handsome stranger,"
and I looked into my cracked mirror with fresh
interest. But I told myself modestly a stalwart
son of the prairies had an unfair advantage in
such a world of stooping sallow students. Cer-
tainly I felt myself favoured both in youth and
looks when I stepped into the Beth-Hamedrash,
the house of study (which I had at first taken for
a little mosque, like those I had seen on the slopes
of Buda), and watched the curious gnarled gray-
beards crooning and rocking the livelong day over
worm-eaten folios.
Despite such odd glimpses of the interesting, I
grew as tired of waiting for the waters to abate as
Noah himself must have felt in his zoological
institute.
One day as I was gazing from my one-story win-
dow at the melancholy marsh to which the flood had
reduced the landscape, I said glumly to my hunch-
backed landlord, who stood snuffing himself under
the porch, " I suppose it will be another week before
I can get away."
" Alas ! yes," Yarchi replied.
" Why alas ? " I asked. " It's an ill wind that
blows nobody any good, and the longer I stay the
better for you."
192 BETHULAH
He shook his head. " The flood that keeps you
here keeps away the pilgrims."
" The pilgrims ! " I echoed.
" Ay," said he. " There will be three in that bed
of yours."
" But what pilgrims ? "
He stared at me. " Don't you know the New
Year is nigh ? "
"Of course," I said mendaciously. I felt ashamed
to confess my ignorant unconcern as to the proximity
of the solemn season of ram's-horn blasts and
penitence.
" Well, it is at New Year the pilgrims flock to their
Wonder Rabbi, that he may hear their petitions and
bear them on high, likewise wrestle with Satan, and
entreat for their forgiveness at the throne of Grace."
There was a twinkle in Yarchi's eyes not quite con-
sistent with the gravity of his words.
" Do Wonder Rabbis live nowadays ? " I asked.
A pinch of snuff Yarchi was taking fell from be-
tween his fingers. " Do they live ! " he cried. " Yes
— and off white bread, for poverty ! "
" We have none in America. I only heard of one
in Prague," I murmured apologetically, fearing the
genus might be of the very elements of Judaism.
" Ah, yes, the high Rabbi Low, his memory for a
blessing," he said reverently. " But these new Won-
der Rabbis can only work one miracle."
" What is that ? " I asked.
BETHULAH 193
" The greatest of all — making their worshippers
support them like princes." And he laughed in
admiration of his own humour.
" Then you are a heretic ? " I said.
" Heretic ! " Yarchi's black eyes exchanged their
twinkle for a flash of resentment. " Nay ; they are
the heretics, breeding dissension in Israel. Did they
not dance on the grave of the sainted Elijah Wilna ? "
Tired of tossing the ball of conversation up and
down, I left the window and joined the philosopher
under his porch, where I elicted from him his version
of the eighteenth-century movement of Chassidim,
(the pious ones), which, in these days of English
books on Judaism, will not be so new to American
Jews as it was to me. These Shakers (or, as we
should perhaps say nowadays, Salvationists), these
protestants against cut-and-dried Judaism, who arose
among the Carpathians under the inspiration of Besht
(a word which Yarchi explained to me was made out
of the initials of Baal Shem Tob — the Master of the
Good Name), had, it seemed, pullulated into a thou-
sand different sects, each named after the Wonder
Rabbi whom it swore by, and in whose "exclusive
divine right " (the phrase is Yarchi's) it believed.
" But we have the divinest chief," concluded
Yarchi, grinning.
" That's what they all say, eh ? " I said, smiling in
response.
" Yes ; but the Zloczszol rabbi is stamped with the
194 BETHULAH
royal seaL He professes to be of the Messianic seed,
a direct descendant of David, the son of Jesse." And
the hunchback chuckled with malicious humour.
" I should like to see him," I said, feeling as if
Providence had provided a new interest for my
boredom.
Yarchi pointed silently with his discoloured thumb
over the plain.
" You don't mean he is kept in that storehouse ! "
I said.
Yarchi guffawed in high good-humour.
" That ! That's the Klaus ! "
" And what's the Klaus f "
" The Chassidim Stubele (little room)."
" Is that where the miracles are done ? "
" No ; that's their synagogue."
"Oh, they just pray there ! "
" Pray ? They get as drunk as Lot"
II
I returned to my window and gazed curiously at
the Klaus, and now that my eye was upon it I saw it
was astir with restless life. Men came and went con-
tinually. I looked toward the synagogue, and the
more pretentious building seemed dead. Then I re-
membered what Yarchi had told me, that the Chassi-
dim had revolted against set prayer-times. (" They
pray and drink at all hours," was his way of putting
BETHULAH 196
it.) Something must always be forward in the Klaus,
I thought, as I took my hat and stick, on exploring
bent. Instinctively I put my pistol in my hip pocket,
then bethought myself with a laugh that I was not
likely to be molested by the " pious ones." But as it
was unloaded, I let it remain in the pocket
I slipped into the building and on to a bench near
the door. But for the veiled Ark at the end, I should
not have known the place for a house of worship.
True, some men were sitting or standing about, shout-
ing and singing, with odd spasmodic gestures, but
the bulk were lounging, smoking clay pipes, drinking
coffee, and chattering, while a few, looking like tramps,
lay snoring on the hard benches, deaf to all the
din. My eye sought at once for the Wonder Rabbi
himself, but amid the many quaint physiognomies
there was none with any apparent seal of supremacy.
The note of all the faces was easy-going good-will,
and even the passionate contortions of melody and
body which the worshippers produced, the tragic
dutchings at space, the clinching of fists, and the
beating of breasts had an air of cheery impromptu.
They seemed to enjoy their very tears. And every
now and then the inspiration would catch one of the
gossipers and contort him likewise, while a worship-
per would as suddenly fall to gossiping.
Very soon a frost-bitten old man I remembered
coming across in the cemetery on the mountain-slope,
where he was sweeping the fallen leaves from a tomb,
196 BETHULAH
and singing like the grave-digger in Hamlet, sidled up
to me and asked me if I needed vodka. I thought it
advisable to need some, and was quickly supplied
from a box the old fellow seemed to keep under the
Ark. The price was so moderate that I tipped him
with as much again, doubtless to the enhancement of
the "rich stranger's" reputation. Sipping it, I was
able to follow with more show of ease the bursts of
rambling conversation. Sometimes they talked about
the floods, anon about politics, then about sacred texts
and the illuminations of the Zohar. But there was
one topic which ran like a winding pattern through
all the talk, bursting in at the most unexpected places,
and this was the wonders wrought by their rabbi.
As they dilated " with enkindlement " upon miracle
after miracle, some wrought on earth and some in
the higher spheres to which his soul ascended, my
curiosity mounted, and calling for more vodka,
" Where is the rabbi ? " I asked the sexton.
" He may perhaps come down to lunch," said he,
in reverent accents, as if to imply that the rabbi was
now in the upper spheres. I waited till tables were
spread with plain fare in the Klaus itself. At the
savour the fountain of worship was sealed ; the snor-
ers woke up. I was invited to partake of the
meal, which, I was astonished to find, was free to all,
provided by the rabbi.
"Truly royal hospitality," I thought. But our
royal host himself did not " come down."
BETH ULAN 197
My neighbour, of whom I kept inquiring, at last
told me, sympathetically, to have patience till Friday
evening, when the rabbi would come to welcome in
the Sabbath. But as it was then Tuesday, " Cannot
I call upon him ? " I asked.
He shook his head. " Ben David holds his court
no more this year," he said. " He is in seclusion,
preparing for the exalted soul-flights of the pilgrim
season. The Sabbath is his only public day now."
There was nothing for it but to wait till the Friday
eve, though in the meantime I got Yarchi to show
me the royal palace — a plain two-storied Oriental-
looking building with a flat roof, and a turret on the
eastern side, whose high, ivy-mantled slit of window
turned at the first rays of the sun into a great diamond.
" He couldn't come down, couldn't he ? " Yarchi
commented. " I daresay he wasn't sober enough."
Somehow this jarred upon me. I was beginning
to conjure up romantic pictures, and assuredly my
one glimpse of the sect had not shown any intoxication
save psychic.
" He is very generous, anyhow," I said. " He
supplies a free lunch."
" Free to him," retorted the incorrigible Yarchi.
" The worshippers fancy it is free, but it is they who
pay for it." And he snuffed himself, chuckling.
" I'll tell you what is free," he added. " His morals ! "
" But how do you know ? "
" Oh, all those fellows go in for the Adamite life."
198 BETHULAH
" What is the Adamite life ? "
He winked. " Not the pre-Evite."
I saw it was fruitless to reason with his hunch-
backed view of the subject.
On the Friday eve I repaired again to the Klaus,
but this time it was not so easy to find a seat. How-
ever, by the grace of my friend the sexton, I was
accommodated near the Ark, where, amid a congre-
gation clad in unexpected white, I sat, a conscious
black discord. There was a certain palpitating fer-
vour in the air, as though the imminence of the New
Year and Judgment Day had strung all spirits to a
higher tension. Suddenly a shiver seemed to run
through the assemblage, and all eyes turned to the
door. A tall old man, escorted by several persons
of evident consideration, walked with erect head but
tottering gait to the little platform in front of the
Ark, and, taking a praying-shawl from the reveren-
tial hand of the sexton, held it a moment, as in
abstraction, before drawing it over his head and
shoulders. As he stood thus, almost facing me,
yet unconscious of me, his image was photographed
on my excited brain. He seemed very aged, with
abundant white locks and beard, and he was clothed
in a white satin robe cut low at the neck and orna-
mented at the breast with gold-laced, intersecting
triangles of "the Shield of David."
On his head was a sort of white biretta. I noted
a curious streak of yellow in the silvered eyebrows,
BETHULAH 199
as if youth clung on, so to speak, by a single hair,
and underneath these arrestive eyebrows green pupils
alternately glowed and smouldered. On his forefinger
he wore a signet ring, set with amethysts and with
a huge Persian emerald, which, as his hand rose and
fell, and his fingers clasped and unclasped themselves
in the convulsion of prayer, seemed to glare at me
like a third green eye. And as soon as he began
thus praying, every trace of age vanished. He trem-
bled, but only from emotion ; and his passion
mounted, till at last his whole body prayed. And
the congregation joined in with shakings and quiver-
ings and thunderings and ululations. Not even in
Prague had I experienced such sympathetic emotion.
After the well-regulated frigidities of our American
services, it was truly warming to be among wor-
shippers not ashamed to feel. Hours must have
passed, but I sat there as content as any. When
the service ended, everybody crowded round the
Wonder Rabbi to give the " Good Sabbath " hand-
shake. The scene jarred me by its incongruous
suggestion of our American receptions at which the
lion of the evening must extend his royal paw to
every guest. But I went up among the rest, and
murmured my salutation. The glow came into his
eyes as they became conscious of me for the first
time, and his gaunt bloodless hand closed crushingly
on mine, so that I almost fancied the signet ring
was sealing my flesh.
200 BETHULAH
"Good Sabbath, stranger," he replied. "You
linger long here."
" As long as the floods," I said.
" Are you as dangerous to us ? " he flashed back.
" I trust not," I said, a whit startled.
His jewelled forefinger drummed on the reading-
stand, and his eyes no longer challenged mine, but
were lowered as in abstraction.
".Your grandfather, who lies in Lemberg, was no
friend to the followers of Besht. He laid the ban
even on white Sabbath garments, and those who but
wept in the synagogues he classed with us."
I was more taken aback by his knowledge of my
grandfather than by that ancient gentleman's hostility
to the emotional heresy of his day.
" I never saw my grandfather," I replied simply.
"True. The son of the prairies should know
more of God than the bookworms. Will you accept
a seat at my table ? "
" With pleasure, Rabbi," I murmured, dazed by
his clairvoyant air.
They were now arranging the two tables, one
with a white cloth for the master and his circle in
strict order of precedence ; and the other of bare
wood for such of the rabble as could first scramble
into the seats. I was placed on his right hand, and
became at once an object of wonder and awe. The
Kiddush which initiated the supper was not a novel
ceremony to me, but what I had never seen before
BETHULAH 201
was the eagerness with which each guest sipped from
the circulating wine-cup of consecration, and the dis-
appointment of such of the mob as could find no
drop to drain. Still fiercer was the struggle for the
Wonder Rabbi's soup, after he had taken a couple
of spoonfuls ; even I had no chance of distinction
before this sudden simultaneous swoop, though of
course I had my own plateful to drink. As sudden
was the transition from soup to song, the whole com-
pany singing and swaying in victorious ecstasy. I
turned to speak to my host, but his face awed me.
The eyes had now their smouldering inward fire.
The eyebrows seemed wholly white ; the features
were still. Then as I watched him his whole body
grew rigid, he closed his eyes, his head fell back.
The singing ceased; as tense a silence reigned as
though the followers too were in a trance. My eyes
were fixed on the Master's blind face, which had now
not the dignity of death, but only the indignity of
lifelessness, and, but for the suggestion of mystery
behind, would have ceased to impress me. For
there was now revealed a coarseness of lips, a nar-
rowness of forehead, an ugliness of high cheek-bone,
which his imperial glance had transfigured, and which
his flowing locks still abated. But as I gazed, the
weird stillness took possession of me. I could not
but feel with the rest that the Master was making a
" soul-ascension."
It seemed very long — yet it may have been only
202 BETHULAH
a few minutes, for in absolute silence one's sense of
time is disconcerted — ere waves of returning life
began to traverse the cataleptic face and form. At
last the Wonder Rabbi opened his eyes, and the
hush grew profounder. Every ear was astrain for
the revelations to come.
" Children," said he slowly, " as I passed through
the circles the souls cried to me. ' Haste, haste, for
the Evil One plotteth and the Messianic day will be
again delayed.' So I rose into the ante-chamber of
Grace where the fiery wheels sang ' Holy, holy,' and
there I came upon the Poison God waiting to see the
glory of the Little Face. And with him was a soul,
very strange, such as I had never seen, living neither
in heaven nor hell, perchance created of Satan him-
self for his instrument. Then with a great cry I
uttered the Name, and the Poison God fled with
a great fluttering, leaving the nameless, naked soul
helpless amid the consuming, dazzling wheels. So
I returned through the circles to reassure the souls,
and they shouted with a great shout."
" Hallelujah ! " came in a great shout from the
wrought-up listeners, and then they burst into a lilt-
ing chant of triumph. But by this time my mood
had changed. The spell of novelty had begun to
wear off; perhaps also I was fatigued by the long
strain. I recalled the coarser face of the comatose
saint, and I found nothing but gibberish in the oracu-
lar " revelation " which he had brought down with
BETHULAH 203
such elaborate pains from the circles amid which he
seemed to move.
Thanking him for his hospitality, I slipped from
the hot, roaring room.
Ah! what a waft of fresh air and sense of starlit
space ! The young moon floated in the star-sprinkled
.heavens like a golden boat, with a faint suggestion
of the full-sailed orb. The true glamour and mys-
tery of the universe were again borne in upon me,
as in our rich, constellated prairie nights, and all the
artificial abracadabra of the Klaus seemed akin to its
heated, noisy atmosphere. The lights of the village
were extinguished, and, looking at my watch, I found
it was close upon midnight. But as I passed the
saint's " palace " I was astonished to find a light
twinkling from the turret window. I wondered who
kept vigil. Then I bethought me it was Friday
night when no light could be struck, and this must
be Ben David's bed-room lamp, awaiting his return.
"I thought he had taken you up in his fiery
chariot," grumbled Yarchi sleepily, as he unbarred
the door.
" The fiery chariot must not run on the Sabbath,"
I said smiling. " And, moreover, Ben David takes
no passengers to the circles."
" Circles ! He ought to have a circle of rope
round his neck."
" The soup was good," I pleaded, as I groped my
way toward my quaint, tall bed.
204 BETHULAH
III
I cannot explain why, when Yarchi asked me sar-
castically, over the Sabbath dinner, whether I was
going to the " Supper of the Holy Queen," I knew
at once that I should be found at this mysterious
meal. Perhaps it was that I had nothing better to
do ; perhaps my sympathy was returning to those
strange, good-humoured, musical loungers, so far
removed from the New York ideal of life. Or per-
haps I was vaguely troubled by the dream I had
wrestled with more or less obscurely all night long —
that I stood naked in a whirl of burning wheels that
sang, as they turned, the melody of the Chassidim.
Was I this nondescript soul, I wondered, half smil-
ingly, fashioned of the Evil One to delay the Messianic
era ?
The sun was set, the three stars already in the sky,
and my pious landlord had performed the Ceremony
of Division ere I set out, declining the bread and fish
Yarchi offered to make up in a package.
" Saturday nights every man must bring his own
meal," he said.
I replied that I went not to eat, but to look on.
However, I was so late in arriving that, as there
were no lights, looking on was well-nigh reduced to
listening. In the gray twilight the Klaus seemed
full of uncanny forms rocking in monotonous sing-
song. Through the gathering gloom the old Wonder
BETHULAH 205
Rabbi's face loomed half ghostlike, half regal. As
the mystic dusk grew deeper and darkness fell, the
fascination of it all began to overcome me : the dim,
tossing, crooning figures, divined rather than seen,
washed round lappingly and swayingly by their own
rhythmic melody, full of wistful sweetness. My
soul too tossed in this circumlapping tide. The
complex world of modern civilization fell away from
me as garments fall from a bather. Even this primi-
tive mountain village passed into nothingness, and
in a timeless, spaceless universe I floated in a lulling,
measureless music.
yEons might have elapsed ere the glare of light
dazzled my eyes when the week-day candles were
lit, and the supper to escort the departing Holy
Queen — the Sabbath — began. Again I was invited
to the upper table, despite Yarchi's warning. But I
had no appetite for earthly things, was jarred by the
prosaic gusto with which the mystics threw them-
selves upon the tureen of red Borsch and the black
pottle of brandy.
" Der Rabbi hat geheissen Branntwein trinken,"
hummed the sexton joyously. But little by little,
as their stomachs grew satiate, the holy singing
started afresh, and presently they leaped up, pulled
aside the table, and made a whirling ring. I was
caught up into the human cyclone, and round and
round we flew, our hands upon one another's shoul-
ders, with blind ecstatic faces, our legs kicking out
206 BETHULAH
madly, to repel, I understood, the embryonic demons
outside the magic circle. And again methought I
made a " soul-ascension," or at least hovered as near
to the ineffable mysteries as the demoniacles to our
magic circle.
Oh, what inexpressible religious raptures were
mine ! What no gorgeous temple, nor pealing organ,
nor white-robed minister had ever wrought for me
was wrought in this barracklike room with its rude
benches and wooden ark. " Children of the Palace "
we sang, and as I strove to pick up the words I
thought we were indeed sons of our Father who is in
Heaven.
CHILDREN OF THE PALACE
Children of the Palace, haste —
All who yearn the bliss to taste
Of the glorious Little-Faced,
Where, within the King's house placed,
Shines the sapphire throne enchased.
Come, in joyful dance enlaced,
Mock the cold and primly chaste.
See no sullen nor straitlaced
In our circle may be traced.
Here with th1 Ancient One embraced
Inmost truth 'tis ours to taste,
Outer husks are shred to waste.
Children of the Palace, haste,
With the glory to be graced,
Come, behold the Little-Faced.
We broke up some hours earlier than the previous
evening, but I hurried away from my sauntering
BETHULAH 207
fellow-worshippers, not now because I was disgusted,
but because I feared to be. I needed solitude —
communion with my own soul. The same crescent
moon hung in the heavens, the same endless stars
drew on the thoughts to a material infinity.
But now I felt there was another and a truer
universe encompassing this painted vision — a spirit-
ual universe of which I had hitherto known nothing,
though I had glibly prated of it and listened well-
satisfied to sermons about it.
The air was warm and pleasant, and, still thrilling
with the sense of the Over-Soul, I had passed the
outposts of the village almost unconsciously, and
walked in the direction of the cemetery on the other
slope of the mountain (for the dead feared neither
floods nor avalanches). On my left ran the river,
still turbulent and encumbered with wreckage and
logs, but now at low tide some feet below the level
of its steep banks. The road gradually narrowed
till at last I was walking on a mere strip of path
between the starlit water and the base of the moun-
tain, which rose ineffably solemn with its desolate
rock at my side and its dark pines higher up. And
suddenly lifting my eyes, I saw before me a mystic
moonlit figure that set my heart beating with terror
and surprise.
It was the figure of a woman, or rather of a girl,
tall, queenly, shining in a strange white robe, with a
crown of roses and olive branches. For a moment
208 BETHULAH
she seemed like some spirit of moonlight. But
though the eyes were misted with sadness and
dream, the face was of the most beautiful Jewish
oval, glowing with dark creamy flesh.
A wild idea rose to my mind, and, absurdly
enough, stilled my beating heart. This was the
Holy Queen Sabbath whose departure we had just
been celebrating, and in this unfrequented haunt
she abode till the twilight of the next Friday.
"Hail, Holy Queen!" I said, almost involuntarily.
I saw her large beautiful eyes grow larger as she
woke with a start to my presence, but she only in-
clined her head with a sovereign air, as one used to
adoration, and floated on — for so her gracious motion
seemed to me.
And as she passed by, it flashed upon me that the
strange white robe was nothing but a shroud. And
again a great horror seized me. But struggling with
my failing senses, I told myself that at worst it was
some poor creature buried alive in the graveyard,
who had forced the coffin lid, and now wandered
half insanely homewards.
" May I not escort you, lady ? " I cried after her.
"The way is lonely."
She turned her face again upon me. I saw it had
fire as well as mystery.
"Who dare molest the Holy Queen ? " she said.
Again I was plunged into the wildest bewilder-
ment. Was my first fancy true ? Or had I stumbled
BETHULAH 209
upon some esoteric title she bore ? Or had she but
seized on my own phrase ?
" But you go far ? " I persisted.
" Unto my father's house."
" Pardon me. I am a stranger."
She turned round wholly now and looked at me.
"Oh, are you the Stranger?" she said. The ques-
tion rippled like music from her lips and was as
sweet to my ear, linking her to me by the suggestion
that I was not new to her imagination.
" I am the Stranger," I answered, moving slowly
toward her, " and therefore afraid for your sake,
and startled by the shroud you wear."
" Since the dawn of my thirteenth year it has
been my daily robe. It should be in lamentation
for Zion laid waste. But me, I fear, it reminds
more of my dead mother and sisters."
" You had sisters ? "
" Two beautiful lives, blown out one after the
other like candles, making our home dark, when I
was but a child. They too wore shrouds in life and
death, first the elder, then the younger; and when
I draw mine over my dress, it is of them I think
always. I feel we are truly sisters — sisters of the
shroud."
I shivered as from some chill graveyard air, despite
her sweet corporeality.
"But the crown — the crown of joy?" I murmured,
regarding now with closer vision the intertangled
210 BETHULAH
weaving of roses and myrtle and olive branches,
with gold and crimson threads wound about salt
stones and the pale yellow of pyrites.
" I do not know what it signifies," she said simply.
" Are you not the Holy Queen ? " I asked, begin-
ning to scent some Cabalistic or Chassidic mystery.
" Men worship me. But I know not of what I am
queen." And a wistful smile played about the sweet
mouth. " Peace and sweet dreams to you, sir." And
she turned her face to the village.
She knew not of what she was queen. There, all
in one sentence, was the charm, the wonder, the
pathos, of her. Yet there was still much that she
knew that would enlighten me. And it was not
wholly curiosity that provoked me to hold the vision.
I hated to see the enchantment of her presence
dissolve, to be robbed of the liquid notes of her voice.
" You are queen of me at least," I said, follow-
ing her, and throwing all my republican principles
into the river among the other wreckage. "And
your Majesty's liege cannot endure to see you walk
unattended so late in the night."
" I have God's company," she answered quietly.
"True; He is always with us. Nevertheless, at
night and in the mountains — "
" He may be perceived more clearly. My father
makes soul-ascensions at any hour by force of prayer.
But for me the divine ecstasy comes only under
God's heaven, and most clearly at night and among
BETHULAH 211
the graves. By day God is invisible, like the
stars."
" They may be perceived from a well," I said,
mechanically, for my brain was busy with the intui-
tion that she was Ben David's daughter, that her
"queendom" was somehow bound up with his alleged
royal descent.
" Even so is God visible from the deeps of the
spirit," she answered. " But these depths are not
mine, and day speaks to me less surely of Him."
"The day is divine too," I urged. "God speaks
also through joy, through sunshine."
" It is but the gilding of sorrow."
" Nay, that is too hard a saying. How can you
know that? You" — I made a bold guess, for my
brain had continued to work feverishly — " who live
cloistered in a turret, who are kept sequestered from
man, who walk at night, arid only among the dead.
How can you know that life is so sad ? "
r"I feel it. Is not every stone in the graveyard
hewn from the dead heart of the mourners ? "
All the sadness of the world was in her eyes, yet
somehow all the sweet solace. Again she bade me
good-night, and I was so under the spell of her
strange reply that I made no further effort to follow
her, as she was swallowed up in the gloom of the
firs where the path wound back round the mountain.
212 BETHULAH
f
IV
The floods abated before the New Year dawned,
as was testified by the arrival, not of doves with olive
leaves, but of pilgrims from the north with shekels.
The road was therefore open for me to go, yet I
lingered. I told myself it was the fascination of the
pilgrims, that curious new population which brought
quite a bustle into the "Ring-Place" of Zloczszol,
and gave even the shops of the native Chassidim a
live air. There were unpleasant camp-followers in
the train of the invading army, cripples and con-
sumptives, both rich and poor; but, on the whole,
it was a cheery, well-to-do company. I retained my
room by paying the rent of three lodgers, and even
then Yarchi would come in and look at the big,
tall bed wistfully, as if it were a waste of sleeping
material.
The great episode of each day was now the royal
levee. Crowds besieged the door of the "palace,"
in quest of health, wealth, and happiness, and the
proprietor of fields had to squeeze in with the tramp,
and the peasant woman and her neglected brat jostled
the jewelled dame from the towns. I was glad to
think that the " Holy Queen " was hidden safely
away in her turret, and this consoled me for not
meeting her again, though I walked or trotted about
on my bay mare at all hours and in all places in
quest of her.
BETHULAH 213
It may seem curious that I did not boldly call and
ask to see her, but that would bring the common-
place into our so poetic relation. Besides which, I
divined that she would not be easily on view. Be-
yond indirectly justifying my intuition that she was
Ben David's daughter by satisfying myself that the
Wonder Rabbi had once had three girls, two of whom
had died, I would not even make inquiries. I feared
to dissipate the mystery and sacredness of our re-
lation by gossip. Perhaps Yarchi would tell me she
was mad, or treat me to some other coarse miscon-
ception due to the callous feelers with which he
apprehended the world.
I did not even know for certain that the light I saw
in the turret was hers. But when at night it was out,
I hastened to the river-side, to see only my own
shadow on the hushed mountain slope or on the
white tombs. It seemed clear that she was being
kept sacred from the pilgrims' gaze ; perhaps, too,
the deserted, untravelled road which was safe as her
own home in normal times, was less secure now.
When I at last ventured to say casually to Yarchi
that Ben David's daughter seemed to be kept strictly
to the house, the ribald grin I had feared distorted
his malicious mouth.
" Oh, you have seen Bethulah ! " he said.
" Yes," I murmured, turning my flushed face away,
but glad to learn her name. Bethulah ! Bethulah !
my heart seemed to beat to the music of it.
214 BETHULAH
" Does she still stalk about in a shroud ? " He did
not wait for an answer, but went off into unending
laughter, which doubled him up till his hunch pro-
truded upward like a camel's.
" She does not go about at all now," I said freez-
ingly. But this set Yarchi cachinnating worse than
ever.
" He daren't trust even his own disciples, you see !
Ha! ha! ha!"
"Yarchi!" I cried angrily, "you know Bethulah
must be kept sacred from this rabble," and I switched
with my riding-whip at the poppies that grew among
the maize in the little front garden, as if they were
pilgrims and I a Tarquin.
" Yes, I know that's Ben David's game. But I
wish some man would marry her and ruin his busi-
ness. Ha! ha! ha!"
" It would ruin yours too," I reminded him, more
angrily. " You are ready enough to let lodgings to
the pilgrims."
Yarchi shrugged his hump. " If fools are fools,
wise men are wise men," he replied oracularly.
I strode away, but he had heated my brain with a
new idea, or one that I now allowed myself to see
clearly. Some man might marry her. Then why
should I not be that man ? Why should I not carry
Bethulah back to America with me — the most pre-
cious curiosity of the Old World — a frank, virginal
creature with that touch of the angel which I had
BETHULAH 216
dreamed of but had never met among our smart girls
— up to then. And even if it were true that Ben
David was a fraud, and needed the girl for his
Cabalistic mystifications, even so I was rich enough
to recoup him. The girl herself was no conscious
accessory; of that I felt certain.
When my brain cooled, suggestions of the other
aspects of the question began to find entrance.
What of Bethulah herself ? Why should she care to
marry me ? Or to go to the strange, raw country ?
And such a union — was it not too incongruous, too
fantastic, for practical life? Thus I wrestled with
myself for three days, all the while watching Bethu-
lah's turret or the roads she might come by. On the
third night I saw a wild mob of men at the turret end
of the house, dancing in a ring and singing, with
their eyes turned upward to the light that burnt on
high. Their words I could not catch at first through
the tumultuous howl, but it went on and on, like their
circumvolutions, over and over again, till my brain
reeled. It seemed to be an appeal to Bethulah to
plead their cause on the coming Yom-Hadin (New-
Year day of Judgment) : —
" By thy soul without sin,
Enter heaven within,
This divine Yom-Hadiny
Holy Maid.
"Undertake thou our plea;
Let the Poison God be
Answered stoutly by thee,
Holy Queea.'1
216 BETHULAH
When I came to write this down afterward, I dis-
covered it was an acrostic on her name, as is custom-
ary with festival prayers. And this I have preserved
in my rough translation.
V
Despite my new spiritual insight, I could not bring
myself to sympathize with such crude earthly vision-
ings of the heavenly judgment bar (doubtless bor-
rowed from the book of Job, which our enlightened
Western rabbis rightly teach to be allegorical).
Temporary absorption into the Over-Soul seemed to
me to sum up the limits of Chassidic experience. Be-
sides, Bethulah was not a being to be employed as
a sort of supernatural advocate, but a sad, tender
creature needing love and protection.
This mob howling outside my lady's chamber
added indignation to my strange passion for this
beautiful " sister of the shroud." I would rescue her
from this grotesque environment. I would go to her
father and formally demand her hand, as, I had learnt,
was the custom among these people. I slept upon
the resolution, yet in the morning it was still un-
crumpled ; and immediately after breakfast I took
my stand among the jostling crowd outside the
turreted house, and unfairly secured precedence by
a gold piece slipped into the palm of the doorkeeper.
The scribe I found stationed in the ante-chamber
BETHULAH 217
made me write my wish on a piece of paper, which,
however, I was instructed to carry in myself.
Ben David was seated in a curious soft-cushioned,
high-backed chair, with the intersecting triangles
making a carved apex to it, but otherwise there was
no mark of what Yarchi would have called charla-
tanism. His face, set between a black velvet biretta
and the white masses of his beard, had the dignity
with which it had first impressed me, and his long,
fur-trimmed robe gave him an air of mediaeval
wisdom.
" Peace be to you, long-lingering stranger," he
said, though his green eyes glittered ominously.
" Peace," I murmured uneasily.
With his left hand he put the still folded paper to
his brow. I watched the light playing on the Persian
emerald seal of the ring on the forefinger of his right
hand. Suddenly I perceived he too was looking at
the stone — nay, into it — and that while that con-
tinued to glitter, his own eyes had grown glazed.
"Strange, strange," he muttered. "Again I see
the fiery wheels, and the strange soul fashioned of
Satan that dwells neither in heaven nor in hell."
And his eyes lit up terribly again and rolled like
fiery wheels.
" What do you want ? " he cried harshly.
"It is written on the paper," I faltered, "just two
words."
He opened the paper and read out, " Your daugh-
218 BETHULAH
ter ! " His eyes rolled again. " What know you of
my daughter?"
" Oh, I know all about her," I said airily.
" Then you know that my daughter does not re-
ceive pilgrims."
" Nay, 'tis I that wish to receive your daughter,"
I ventured jocosely, with a touch of levity I did not
feel. He raised his clinched hand as if to strike me,
and I had a lurid sense of three green eyes glaring
at me. I stood my ground as coolly as possible, and
said, in dry, formal tones, " I wish to make applica-
tion for her hand."
A great blackness came over the frosted visage, as
if his black biretta had been suddenly drawn forward,
and his erst blanched eyebrows gloomed like a black
lightning-cloud over the baleful eyes.
I shrank back, then I had a sudden vision of the
wagons clattering down Broadway in a live, sunlit,
go-ahead world, and the Wonder Rabbi turned into
an absurd old parent with a beautiful daughter and a
bad temper.
" I am a man of substance," I went on dryly. " In
my country I have fat lands."
The horribleness of thus bidding for Bethulah
flashed on me even as I spoke. To mix up a crea-
ture of mist and moonlight with substance and fat
lands ! Monstrous ! And yet I knew that thus, and
thus only, by honourable talk with her guardian, could
a Zloczszol bride be won.
BETHULAH 210
But the Wonder Rabbi sprang to his feet so vehe-
mently that his high-backed chair rocked as in a gale.
" Dog ! " he shrieked. " Blasphemer ! "
I summoned all my American sang-froid.
" Dog," I agreed, " inasmuch as I follow your
daughter like a dog, humbly, lovingly. But blas-
phemer ? Say rather worshipper. For I worship
Bethulah."
" Then worship her like the others," he roared.
Had I not heard him pray, I should have expected
the hoary patriarch to collapse after such an out-
burst.
" Thank you," I said. " I don't want her to fly up
to heaven for me. I want her to come down to earth
— from her turret."
" She will not come down to any earthly spouse,"
he said more gently. " Quite the reverse."
"Then I will make a soul-ascension," I said defi-
antly.
" Get back to hell, spawn of Satan ! " he thundered
again. " Or since, strange son of the New World,
you neither believe nor disbelieve, hover eternally
between hell and heaven ! "
" Meantime I am here," I said good-humouredly,
" between you and your daughter. Come, come, be
sensible ; you are a very old man. Where in Zloc-
zszol will you find a superior husband for your child ? "
"The Lord, to whom she is consecrated, forgive
you your blasphemy," he said, in a changed voice,
220 BETHULAH
and rang his bell, so that the next applicant came in
and I had to go.
It was plain the girl was kept as a sacred celibate,
a sort of vestal virgin — Bethulah was the very He-
brew for virgin, it suddenly flashed upon me. But
how came such practices into Judaism — Judaism,
with its cheery creed, " increase and multiply ? "
And C/iassidism, I had hitherto imagined, was the
cheeriness of Judaism concentrated ! In Yarchi's
version it was even license — " the Adamite life." I
raked up my memories of the Bible — remembered
Jephtha's daughter. But no ! there could be no
question of a vow; this was some new Chassidic
mystery. The crown and the shroud ! The shroud
of renunciation, the crown of victory !
And for some fantastic shadow-myth a beautiful
young life was to be immolated. My respect for
Ckassidisr* vanished as suddenly as it came.
But I was powerless. I could only wait till the
flood of pilgrims oozed back, even as the waters had
done. Then perhaps Bethulah might walk again
upon the moonlit mountain-peak, or in the " house of
life," as the cemetery was mystically called.
The penitential season, with its trumpets and ter-
rors, judgment-writings and sealings, was over at
last, and Tabernacles came like a breath of air and
nature. Yarchi hammered up a little wooden booth
in the corner of his front garden, and hung grapes
and oranges and flowers from its loose roof of boughs,
BET HULA H 221
through which the stars peeped at us as we ate. It
struck me as a very pretty custom, and I wondered
why American Judaism had let it fall into desuetude.
Ere the break-up of these booths the pilgrims had
begun to melt away, the old sleepiness to fall upon
Zloczszol.
Hence I was startled pne morning by the passage
of a joyous procession that carried torches and played
on flutes and tambourines. I ran out and discovered
that I was part of a wedding procession escorting a
bride. As this was a company not of Chassidim,
but of everyday Jews, bound for the little Gothic
synagogue, I was surprised, despite my experience
of the Tabernacles, to find such picturesque goings-
on, and I went all the way to the courtyard, where
the rabbi came out to meet us with the bridegroom,
who, it seemed, had already been conducted hither
with parallel pomp. The happy youth — for he
could only have been sixteen — was arrayed in festi-
val finery, with white shoes on his feet and black
phylacteries on his forehead, which was further over-
gloomed by a cowl. He took the bride's hand, and
then we all threw wheat over their heads, crying
three times, "Peru, Urvu" (Be fruitful and multi-
ply). But just when I expected the ceremony to
begin, the bride was snatched away, and we all filed
into the synagogue to await her return.
I had fallen into a mournful reverie — perhaps the
suggestion of my own infelicitous romance was too
222 BETHULAH
strong — when I felt a stir of excitement animating
my neighbours, and, looking up, lo ! I saw a tall
female figure in a white shroud, with a veiled face,
and on her head a crown of roses and myrtles
and olive branches. A shiver ran through me.
" Bethulah ! " I cried half-aloud. My neighbours
smiled, and as I continued to stare at the figure, I saw
it was only the bride, thus transmogrified for the
wedding canopy. And then some startling half com-
prehension came to me. Bethulah's dress was a
bride's dress, then. She was made to appear a per-
petual bride. Of whom ? To what Cabalistic mys-
tery was this the key ? The Friday night hymn
sprang to my mind.
" Oh, come, my beloved, to meet the Bride,
The face of the Sabbath let us welcome."
For a moment I thought I held the solution, and
that my very first conjecture had been warranted.
The Holy Queen Sabbath was also typified as the
Sabbath Bride, and this dual allegory it was that
Bethulah incarnated. Or perchance it was Israel,
the Bride of God!
But I was still dissatisfied. I felt that the truth
lay deeper than a mere poetic metaphor or a poeti-
cal masquerading. I discovered it at last, but at the
risk of my life.
BETHULAH 223
VI
I continued to walk nightly on the narrow path
between the mountain and the river, like the ghost
of one drowned, but without a glimpse of Bethulah.
At last it grew plain that her father had warned her
against me, that she had changed the hour of her
exercise and soul-ascension, or even the place. I was
indebted to accident for my second vision of this
strange creature.
I had diverted myself by visiting the neighbouring
village, a refreshing contrast to Jewish Zloczszol,
from the rough garland-hung wayside crosses (which
were like sign-posts to its gilt-towered church) to the
peasant women in pink aprons and top boots.
A marvellous sunset was well-nigh over as I struck
the river-side that curved homewards. The bank was
here very steep, the river running as between cliffs.
In the sky great drifts of gold-flushed cloud hung
like relics of the glory that had been, and the autumn
leaves that muffled my mare's footsteps seemed to
have fallen from the sunset. In the background the
white peak of the mountain was slowly parting with
its volcanic splendour. And low on the horizon, like
a small lake of fire in the heart of a tangled bush,
the molten sun showed monstrous and dazzling.
And straight from the sunset over the red leaves
Bethulah came walking, rapt as in prophetic thought,
224 BETHULAH
shrouded and crowned, preceded by a long shadow
that seemed almost as intangible.
I reined in my horse and watched the apparition
with a great flutter at my heart. And as I gazed,
and thought of her grotesque worshippers, it was
borne in upon me how unbefittingly Nature had
peopled her splendid planet. The pageantry of
dawn and sunset, of seas and mountains, how in-
congruous a framework for our petty breed, sordidly
crawling under the stars. Bethulah 'alone seemed
fitted to the high setting of the scene. She matched
this lone icy peak, this fiery purity.
"Bethulah!" I said, as she was almost upon my
horse.
She looked up, and a little cry that might have
been joy or surprise came from her lips. But by the
smile that danced in her eyes and the blood that
leapt to her cheeks, I saw with both joy and surprise
that this second meeting was as delightful to her as
to me.
But the conscious Bethulah hastened to efface
what the unconscious had revealed. " It is not
right of you, stranger, to linger here so long," she
said, frowning.
"I am your shadow," I replied, "and must linger
where you linger."
" But you are indeed a shadow, my father says
— a being fashioned of the Poison God to work
us woe."
BETHULAH 225
"No, no," I said, laughing; "my horse bears no
shadow. And the Poison God who fashioned me
is not the absurd horned and tailed tempter you
have been taught to believe in, but a little rosy-
winged god, with a bow and poisoned arrows."
" A little rosy-winged god ? " she said. " I know
of none such."
"And you know not of what you are queen," I
retorted, smiling.
"There is but one God," she insisted, with sweet
seriousness. " See, He burns in the bush, yet it is
not consumed."
She pointed to where the red sinking sun seemed
to eat out the heart of the bush through which
we saw it.
"Thus this love-god burns in our hearts," I said,
lifted up into her poetic strain, "and we are not
consumed, only glorified."
I strove to touch her hand, which had dropped
caressingly on my horse's neck. But she drew back
with a cry.
" I may not listen. This is the sinful talk my
father warned me of. Fare you well, stranger."
And with swift step she turned homewards.
I sat still a minute or two, half-disconcerted, half-
content to gaze at her gracious motions ; then I
touched the mare with my heel, and she bounded
off in pursuit. But at this instant three men in
long gabardines and great round velvet hats started
226 BETHULAH
forward from the thicket, shouting and waving
lighted pine-branches, and my frightened animal
reared and plunged, and then broke into a mad
gallop, making straight for the river curve between
the cliffs. I threw myself back in the saddle, tug-
ging desperately at the creature's mouth ; but I
might have been a child pulling at an elephant.
I shook my feet free of the stirrups and prepared
to tumble off as best I could, rather than risk the
plunge into the river, when a projecting bough
made me duck my head instinctively; but as I
passed under it, with another instinctive movement
I threw out my hands to clasp it, and, despite a
violent wrench that seemed to pull my arms out
of their sockets and swung my feet high forward,
I hung safely. The mare, eased of my weight,
was at the river-side the next instant, and with a
wild, incredible leap alighted with her forefeet and
the bulk of her body on the other bank, up which
she scraped convulsively, and then stood still, trem-
bling and sweating. I could not get at her, so,
trusting she would find her way home safely, I
dropped to the ground and ran back, with a mixed
idea of finding Bethulah and chastising the three
scoundrels. But all were become invisible.
I walked half a mile across the plain to get to
the rough pine bridge ; and, once on the other
bank, I had no difficulty in recovering the mare.
She cantered up to me, indeed, and put her soft and
BETHULAH 227
still perspiring nose in my palm and whinnied her
apologetic congratulations on our common escape.
I rode slowly home, reflecting on the new turn
in my love affairs, for it was plain that Bethulah
had now been provided with a body-guard, of which
she was as unconscious as of her body itself.
But for the apparent necessity of her making
soul-ascensions under God's heaven, I supposed she
would not have been allowed to take the air at all
with such a creature of Satan hovering.
I stood sunning myself the next day on the
same pine bridge, looking down on the swift cur-
rent, and regretting there was no rail to lean on
as one watched the fascinating flow of the beauti-
ful river. It struck me as inordinately blue, — per-
haps, I analyzed, by contrast with the long, sinuous
weeds which here glided and tossed in the current
like green water-snakes. These flexible greens re-
minded me of the Wonder Rabbi's eyes and his
emerald seal; and I turned, with some sudden pre-
monition of danger, just in time to dodge the
attack of the same three ruffians, who must have
been about to push me over.
In an instant I had whipped out my pistol from
my hip pocket, and cried, " Stand, or I fire ! "
The trio froze instantly in odd attitudes, which
was lucky, as my pistol was unloaded. They looked
almost comical in their air of abject terror. Their
narrow, fanatical foreheads, with ringlets of piety
228 BETHULAH
hanging down below the velvet, fur-trimmed hats,
showed them more accustomed to murdering texts
than men. Had I not been still smouldering over
yesterday's trick, I could have pitied them for the
unwelcome job thrust upon their unskilled and ap-
parently even unweaponed hands by the machina-
tions of the Poison God and the orders of Ben David.
One of them seemed quite elderly, and one quite
young. The middle-aged one had a goitre, and per-
haps that made me fancy him the most sinister, and
keep my eye most warily upon him.
" Sons of Belial," I said, recalling a biblical phrase
that might be expected to prick, " why do you seek
my life ? "
Two of them cowered under my gaze, but the
elderly Chassid, seeing the shooting was postponed,
spoke up boldly : "We are no sons of Belial. You
are the begotten of Satan ; you are the arch enemy
of Israel."
" I ? " I protested in my turn. " I am a plain
God-fearing son of Abraham."
"A precious scion of the Patriarch's seed, who
would delay the coming of the Messiah ! "
Again that incomprehensible accusation.
" You speak riddles," I said.
" How so ? Did you not tell Ben David — his horn
be exalted — that you knew all concerning Bethulah?
Then must you know that of her immaculacy will
the Messiah be born, one ninth of Ab."
BETHULAH 229
A flood of light burst upon me — mystic, yet clari-
fying ; blinding, yet dissipating my darkness. My
pistol drooped in my hand. My head swam with a
whirl of strange thoughts, and Bethulah, already
divine to me, took on a dazzling aureola, sailed away
into some strange supernatural ether.
"Have we not been in exile long enough?" said
the youngest. " Shall a godless stranger tamper
with the hope of generations ? "
" But whence this mad hope ? " I said, struggling
under the mystic obsession of his intensity.
"Mad?" began the first, his eyes spitting fire;
but the younger interrupted him.
" Is not our saint the sole scion of the house of
David ? Is not his daughter the last of the race ? "
" And what if she is ? "
" Then who but she can be the destined mother of
Israel's Redeemer ? "
The goitred Chassid opened his lips and added,
" If not now, when ? as Hillel asked."
" In our days at last must come the crowning glory
of the house of Ben David," the young man went on.
"For generations now, since the signs have pointed
to the millennium, have the daughters of the house
been kept unwedded."
"What!" I cried. "Generations of Bethulahs
have been sacrificed to a dream ! "
Again the eyes of the first Chassid dilated danger-
ously. I raised my pistol, but hastened to ask, in a
230 BETHULAH
more conciliatory tone, " Then how has the line been
carried on ? "
"Through the sons, of course," said the young
Chassid. " Now for the first time there are no sons,
and only one daughter remains, the manifest vessel
of salvation."
I tried to call up that image of bustling Broadway
that had braced me in colloquy with the old Wonder
Rabbi, but it seemed shadowy now, compared with
this world of solid spiritualities which begirt me.
Could it be the same planet on which such things
went on simultaneously ? Or perhaps I was dream-
ing, and these three grotesque creatures were the
product of Yarchi's cookery.
But their hanging curls had a daylight definite-
ness, and down in the sunlit, translucent river I could
see every shade of colour, from the green of the sinu-
ous reed-snakes to the brown of the moss patches.
On the bank walked two crows, and I noted for the
first time with what comic pomposity they paced,
their bodies bent forward like two important old
gentlemen with their hands in the pockets of their
black coat tails. They brought a smile to my face,
but a menacing movement of the Chassidim warned
me to be careful.
" And does the girl know all this ? " I asked
hurriedly.
" She did not yesterday," said the elderly fellow.
" Now she has been told."
BETHULAH 231
There was another long pause. I meditated rapidly
but disjointedly, having to keep an eye against
a sudden rush of my assailants, and mistrusting
the goitred saint yet the more because he was so
silent.
" And is Bethulah content with her destiny ? " I
asked.
" She is in the seventh heaven," said the elderly
saint.
I had a poignant shudder of incredulous protest.
I recalled the flush of her sweet face at the sight of
me, and brief as our meetings had been, I dared to
feel that the irrevocable thrill had passed between
us ; that the rest would have been only a question of
time.
" Let Bethulah tell me so herself," I cried, " and I
will leave her in her heaven."
The men looked at one another. Then the eldest
shook his head. " No ; you shall never speak to her
again."
" We have maidens more beautiful among us,"
said the young man. " You shall have your choice.
Ay, even my own betrothed would I give you."
I flicked aside his suggestion. "But you cannot
prevent Bethulah walking under God's heaven."
They looked dismayed. " I will meet her," I said,
pursuing my advantage. "And Yarchi and other
good Jews shall be at hand."
" She shall be removed elsewhere," said the first.
232 BETHULAH
"I will track her down. Ah, you are afraid," I
said mockingly. " You see it is not true that she is
content to be immolated."
" It is true," they muttered.
" True as the Torah," added the elderly man.
"Then there is no harm in her telling me so."
" You may bear her off on your horse," said he of
the goitre.
" I will go on foot. Let her bid me go away, and
I will leave Zloczszol."
Again they looked at one another, and the relief
in their eyes brought heart-sinking into mine. Yes,
it was true. Bethulah was in the glow of a great
surrender; she was still tingling with the revelation
of her supreme destiny. To put her to the test now
would be fatal. No; let her have time to meditate;
ay, even to disbelieve.
" To-morrow you shall speak with her, and no man
shall know," said the oldest CJiassid.
" No, not to-morrow. In a week or two."
"Ah, you wish to linger among us," he replied
suspiciously.
" I will go away till the appointed day," I replied
readily.
" Good. Continue your travels. Let us say a
month, or even two."
" If you will not spirit her away in my absence."
" It is as easy to do so in your presence."
" So be it."
BETHULAH 233
"Shall we say — the eve of Chanukah?" he sug-
gested.
It was my turn to regard him suspiciously. But I
could see nothing to cavil at. He had merely men-
tioned an obvious date — that of the next festival
landmark. Chanukah — the feast of rededication of
the Temple after the Grecian pollution — the miracle
of the unwaning oil, the memorial lighting of lights ;
there seemed nothing in these to work unduly upon
the girl's soul, except in so far as the inspiring tradi-
tion of Judas Maccabaeus might attach her more de-
votedly to her cpnceptions of duty and self-dedica-
tion. Perhaps, I thought, with a flash of jealous
anger, they meditated a feast of rededication of her
after the pollution of my presence had been removed.
Well, we should see.
" The eve of Chanukah," I agreed, with a noncha-
lant air. " Only let the place be where I first met
her — the path 'twixt mountain and river as you go
to the cemetery."
That would at least be a counter-influence to
Chanukah! As they understood none of the sub-
tleties of love, they agreed to this, and I made them
swear by the Name.
When they went their way I stood pondering on
the bridge, my empty pistol drooping in my hand,
till sky and river glowed mystically as with blood,
and the chill evening airs reminded me that Novem-
ber was nigh.
234 BETHULAH
VII
I got to Warsaw and back in the time at my dis-
posal, but not all the freshness and variety of my
experiences could banish the thought of Bethulah.
There were days when I could absorb myself in the
passing panorama, but I felt always, so to speak, in
the ante-chamber of the great moment of our third
and decisive meeting.
And with every shortening day of December that
moment approached. Yet I all but missed it when it
came. A snowfall I might easily have foreseen re-
tarded my journey at the eleventh hour, but my
faithful mare ploughed her way through the white
morasses. As she munched her mid-day corn in that
quaint Christian village that neighboured Zloczszol,
and in which I had agreed to stable her, it was borne
in on me for the first time that the eve of Chanukah
was likewise Christmas eve. I wondered vaguely if
there was any occult significance in the coincidence
or in the Chassidic choice of dates ; but it was too
late now to protest, and loading my pistol against foul
play, I hurried to the rendezvous.
On the dark barren base of the mountain, patches
of snow gJeamed like winter blossoms ; the gargoyle-
like faces of the jags of rock on the river-bank
were white-bearded with icicles. Down below the
stream raced, apparently as turbid as ever, but sud-
denly, as it made a sharp curve and came under a
BETHULAH 235
thick screen of snow-laden boughs interarching over
the cleft, it grew glazed in death.
The sight of Bethulah was as of a spirit of sun-
shine moving across the white desolation. Her tall
lone shadow fell blue upon the snowy path. She was
swathed now in splendid silver furs, from which her
face shone out like a tropical flower beneath its
wreathed crown.
Dignity and sovereignty had subtly replaced the
grace of her movement, her very stature seemed ag-
grandized by the consciousness of her unique mis-
sion.
She turned, and her virginal eyes met mine with
abashing purity, and in that instant of anguished
rapture I knew, that my quest was vain. The deli-
cate flush of joy and surprise touched her cheeks, in-
deed, as before, but this time I felt it would not be
succeeded by terror. Self-conscious now, self-poised,
she stood regally where she had faltered and fled.
"You return to spend Chanukah with us," she said.
"I came," I said, with uneasy bravado, "in the
hope of spending it elsewhere — with you."
" But you know that cannot be," she said gently.
Ah, now she knew of what she was queen. But
revolt was hot in my heart.
" Then they have made you share their dream," I
said bitterly.
"Yes," she replied, with unruffled sweetness.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
236 BETHULAH
those that bring good tidings ! " And her eyes shone
in exultation.
" They were messengers of evil," I said — " whis-
perers of untruth. Life is for love and joy."
"Ah, no!" she urged tremulously. "Surely you
know the world — how full it is of suffering and sin."
And as with an unconscious movement, she threw
back her splendid furs, revealing the weird shroud.
" Ah, what ecstasy to think that the divine day will
come, ere I am old, when, as it is written in the
twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, * He will destroy in
this mountain the face of the covering cast over all
people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death in victory : and the Lord
God will ^vipe away tears from off all faces ; and the
rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all
the earth : for the Lord hath spoken! "
Her own eyes were full of tears, which I yearned
to kiss away.
" But your own life meantime ? " I said softly.
" My life — does it not already take on the glory
of God as this mountain the coming day ? "
She seemed indeed akin to the cold white peak as
I had seen it flushed with sunrise. My passion
seemed suddenly prosaic and selfish. I was lifted up
into the higher love that worships and abnegates.
" God bless you ! " I said, and turning away with
misty vision, saw, creeping off, the three dark fanati-
cal figures.
BETH U LA H 237
VIII
Half a century later I was startled to find the name
of Zloczszol in a headline of the Sunday edition of
my American paper.
I had married, and was even a grandfather ; for
after my return to America the world of Bethulah
had grown fantastic, stupidly superstitious, and,
finally, shadowy and almost unreal. Years and years
of happiness had dissipated and obliterated the deli-
cate fragrant dream of spiritual love.
But that strange long-forgotten name stirred in-
stantly the sleeping past to life. I adjusted my specta-
cles and read the column eagerly. It was sensational
enough, though not more so than a hundred columns
of calamities in unknown places that one skips or
reads with the mildest of thrills.
The long-threatened avalanche had fallen, and
Nature had once more rudely reminded man of his
puny place in creation. Rare conditions had at last
come together. First a slight fall of snow, covering
the mountain — how vividly I pictured it ! — then a
sharp frost which had frozen this deposit ; after that
a measureless, blinding snow-storm and a cyclonic
wind. When all seemed calm again, the second
mass of snow had begun to slide down the frozen
surface of the first, quickening to a terrific pace,
tearing down the leafless trunks and shooting them
at the village like giant arrows of the angry gods.
238 BETHULAH
One of these arrows penetrated the trunk of a great
cedar on the plain and stuck out on both sides,
making a sort of cross, which the curious came from
far and near to see. But, alas ! the avalanche had
not contented itself with such freakish manifes-
tations ; it had annihilated the new portion of the
village which had dared crawl nearer the mountain
when the railroad — a railroad in Zloczszol ! — had
found it cheaper to pass near the base than to make
a circuit round the congested portion !
Alas ! the cheapness was illusory. The depot
with its crowd had been wiped out as by the offended
Fury of the mountain ; though by another freakish
incident, illustrating the Titanic forces at work, yet
the one redeeming detail of the appalling catastrophe,
a small train of three carriages that had just moved
off was lifted up bodily by the terrible wind that raced
ahead of the monstrous sliding snowball, and was
clapped down in a field out of its reach, as if by a
protecting hand. Not a creature on it was injured.
I had passed the years allotted to man by the
Psalmist, and my memory of the things of yesterday
had begun to be faint and elusive, but the images
of my Zloczszol adventure returned with a vividness
that grew daily more possessive. What had become
of Bethulah ? Was she alive ? Was she dead ? And
which were the sadder alternative — to have felt the
darkness of early death closing round the great hope,
or to have survived its possibility, and old, bent,
BETHULAH 239
bitter, and deserted by her followers, to await the
lesser disenchantment of the grave ?
An irresistible instinct impelled me — aged as I
was myself — to revisit alone these scenes of my
youth, to see how fate had rounded or broken off
its grim ironic story.
I pass over the stages of the journey, at the con-
clusion of which I found myself again in the moun-
tain village. Alas ! The changes on the route had
prepared me for the change in Zloczszol. Railroads
threw their bridges over the gorges I had climbed,
telegraph poles tamed the erst savage forest ways.
And Zloczszol itself had now, by the line passing
through it, expanded into a trading centre, with
vitality enough to recuperate quickly from the ava-
lanche. The hotel was clean and commodious, but
I could better have endured that ancient sitting-room
in which the squalling baby was rocked. Strange,
I could see its red wrinkled face, catch the very
timbre of its piping cries ! Only the mountain was
unchanged, and the pines and firs that had whispered
dreams to my youth whispered sleep to my age. Ah,
how frail and futile is the life of man ! He passes
like a shadow, and the green sunlit earth he trod on
closes over him and takes the tread of the new gener-
ations. What had I to say to these new, smart
people in Zloczszol ? No, the dead were my gossips
and neighbours. For me more thari the avalanche
had desolated Zloczszol. I repaired to the cemetery.
240 BETHULAH
There I should find Yarchi. It was no use looking
for him under the porch of the pine cottage. And
there, too, I should in all likelihood find Bethulah !
But Ben David's tomb was the first I found, carved
with the intersecting triangles. The date showed
he had died very soon after my departure ; perhaps,
I thought remorsefully, my importunities had agi-
tated him too much. Ah ! there at last was Yarchi.
Under a high white stone he slept as soundly as any
straight corpse. His sneering mouth had crumbled
to dust, but I would have given much to hear it once
more abuse the Chassidim. Propped on my stick
and poring over the faded gilt letters, I recalled " the
handsome stranger" whom the years had marred.
But of Bethulah I saw no sign. I wandered back
and found the turreted house, but it had been con-
verted into a large store, and from Bethulah's turret
window hung a great advertising sky-sign.
I returned cheerlessly to the hotel, but as the sun
began to pierce auspiciously through the bleakness
of early March, I was about to sally forth again in the
direction of Yarchi's ancient cottage, when the porter
directed me — as if I were a mere tourist — to go to
see the giant cedar of Lebanon with its Titanic arrow.
However, I followed his instructions, and pretty soon
I espied the broad-girthed tree towering over its field,
with the foreign transpiercing trunk about fifteen
feet from the ground, making indeed a vast cross.
Leaning against the sunlit cedar was a white-robed
BETHULAH 241
figure, and as I hobbled nearer I saw by the shroud
and the crown of flowers that I had found Bethu-
lah.
At my approach she drew herself up in statuesque
dignity, upright as Ben David of yore, and looked at
me with keen unclouded eyes. There. was a won-
drous beauty of old age in her face and bearing.
The silver hair banded on the temples glistened
picturesquely against the reds and greens and golds
of her crown.
"Ah, stranger ! " she said, with a gracious smile.
"You return to us."
"You recognize me? " I mumbled, in amaze.
" It is the face I loved in youth," she said simply.
Strange, happy, wistful tears sprang to my old eyes
— some blurred sense of youth and love and God.
"Your youth seems with you still," I said. "Your
face is as sweet, your voice as full of music."
The old ecstatic look lit up her eyes. " It is God
who keeps me ever young, till the great day dawns."
I was taken aback. What ! She believed still !
That alternative had not figured in my prevision of
pathetic closes. I was silent, but the old tumult of
thought raged within me.
" But is not the day passed forever ? " I murmured
at last.
The light in her eyes became queenly fire.
" While there is life," she cried, " in the veins of the
house of Ben David ! " And as she spoke my eye
242 BETHULAH
caught the gleam of the Persian emerald on her fore-
finger.
"And your worshippers — what of them? " I asked.
Her eyes grew sad. "After my father's death —
his memory for a blessing ! — the pilgrims fell off,
and when the years passed without the miracle, his
followers even here in Zloczszol began to weaken.
And slowly a new generation arose, impatient and
lax, which believed not in the faith of their forefathers
and mocked my footsteps, saying, ' Behold ! the
dreamer cometh ! ' And then the black fire-monster
came, whizzing daily to and fro on the steel lines and
breathing out fumes of unfaith, and the young men
said lo ! there is our true Redeemer. Wherefore, as
the years waxed and waned, until at last advancing
Death threw his silver shadow on my hair, even the
faithful grew to doubt, and they said, ' But a few short
years more and death must claim her, her mission
unfulfilled, and the lamp of Israel's hope shattered
forever. Perchance it is we that have misunderstood
the prophecies. Not here, not here, shall God's great
miracle be wrought ; this is not holy ground. " For
the Lord dwelleth in Zion," ' they cried with the
Prophets. Only on the sacred soil, outside of which
God has never revealed himself, only in Palestine,
they said, can Israel's Redeemer be born. As it
is written, ' But upon Mount Zion shall be deliver-
ance, and there shall be holiness.'
" Then these and the scoffers persuaded me, seeing
BETHULAH 243
that I waxed very old, and I sold my father's house —
now grown of high value — to obtain the money for
the journey, and I made ready to start for Jerusalem.
There had been a whirlwind and a great snow the
day before and I would have tarried, but they said I
must arrive in the Holy City ere the eve of Chanu-
kah. And putting off my shroud and my crown,
seeing that only in Jerusalem I might be a bride, I
trusted myself to the fire-monster, and a vast com-
pany went with me to the starting-place — both of •
those who believed that salvation was of Zion and
those who scoffed. But the monster had scarcely
crawled out under God's free heaven than God's
hand lifted me up and those with me — for my bless-
edness covered them — and put us down very far off,
while a great white thunder-bolt fell upon the build-
ing and upon the scoffers and upon those who had
prated of Zion, and behold ! they were not. The
multitude of Moab was as straw trodden down for
the dunghill, and the high fort of the fire-monster
was brought down and laid low and brought to the
ground, even to the dust. Then arose a great cry
from all the town and the mountain, and a rending of
garments and a weeping in sackcloth. And many re-
turned to the faith in me, for God's hand has shown
that here, and not elsewhere, is the miracle to be
wrought. As it is written, word for word, in the
twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah : —
"'And He will destroy in this mountain the face
244 RETHULAH
of the covering cast over all people, and the vail
that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up
deatJt in victory ; and the Lord God shall wipe away
tears from off all faces : and the rebuke of His people
shall He take away from off all the earth : for the
Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that
day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him,
and He will save us : this is the Lord ; we have waited
for Him, %ve will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.
'For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest,
and Moab shall be trodden down under Him, even as
straw is trodden down for the dunghill. And He
shall spread forth His hands in the midst of them,
as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth to swim: and He
shall bring down their pride together with the spoils
of their hands. A nd the fortress of the high fort of thy
walls shall He bring down, lay low, and bring to the
ground, even to the dust.'
" And here in this cedar of Lebanon, transplanted
like Israel under the shadow of this alien mountain,
the Lord has shot a bolt, for a sign to all that can
read. And here I come daily to pray, and to await
the divine moment."
She ceased, and her eyes turned to the now stain-
less heaven. And as I gazed upon her shining face
it seemed to me that the fresh flowers and leaves of
her crown, still wet with the dew, seen against that
garment of death and the silver of decaying life, were
symbolic of an undying, ever rejuvenescent hope.
BETH U LA H 245
IX
A last surprise awaited me. Bethulah now lived
all alone in Yarchi's pine cottage, which the years
had left untouched.
Whether accident or purpose settled her there I
do not know, but my heart was overcharged with
mingled emotion as I went up the garden the next
day to pay her a farewell visit. The poppies flaunted
riotously amid the neglected maize, but the cottage
itself seemed tidy.
It was the season when the cold wrinkled lips of
winter meet the first kiss of spring, and death is
passing into resurrection. It was the hour when
the chill shadows steal upon the sunlit day. In the
sky was the shot purple of a rolling moor, merging
into a glow of lovely green.
I stood under the porch where Yarchi had been
wont to sun and snuff himself, and knocked at the
door, but receiving no answer, I lifted the latch softly
and looked in.
Bethulah was at her little table, her head lying on
a great old1 Bible which her arms embraced. One
long finger of departing sunlight pointed through
the window and touched the flowers on the gray
hair. I stole in with a cold fear that she was dead.
But she seemed only asleep, with that sleep of old
age which is so near to death and is yet the renewal
of life.
246 BETHULAH
I was curious to see what she had been reading.
It was the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, and in the
shadow of her crown ran the verses : —
" And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wher-efore did
Sarah laugh, saying, Shalt I of a surety bear a child,
which am old?
"Is anything too hard for the Lord? "
VII
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
VII
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
SALVINA BRILL walked to and fro in the dingy
Hackney Terrace, waiting till her mother should
return with the house-key. So far as change of
scene was concerned the little pupil-teacher might
as well have stood still. Everywhere bow-windows,
Venetian blinds, little front gardens — all that had
represented domestic grandeur to her after a child-
hood of apartments in Spitalfields, though her sub-
sequent glimpse of the West End home in which her
sister Kitty was governess, had made her dazedly
aware of Alps beyond Alps.
Though only seventeen, Salvina was not superfi-
cially sweet and could win no consideration from the
seated males in the homeward train, and the heat of
the weather and the crush of humanity — high hats
sandwiched between workmen's tool-baskets — had
made her head ache. Her day at the Whitechapel
school had already been trying, and Thursday was
always heavy with the accumulated fatigues of the
week. It was unfortunate that her mother should
be late, but she remembered how at breakfast the
249
250 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
good creature had promised father to make a little
excursion to the Borough and take a packet of tea
to the house of some distant relatives of his, who
were sitting shivak (seven days' mourning). The
non-possession of a servant made it necessary to
lock up the house and pull down the blinds, when
its sole occupant went visiting.
After a few minutes of vain expectation, Salvina
mechanically returned to her Greek grammar, which
opened as automatically at the irregular verbs. She
had just achieved the greatest distinction of her life,
and one not often paralleled in Board School girl-
circles, by matriculating at the London University.
Hers was only a second-class pass, but gained by
private night-study, supplemented by some evening
lessons at the People's Palace, it was sufficiently
remarkable ; especially when one considered she had
still other subjects to prepare for the Centres. Sal-
vina was now audaciously aiming at the Bachelor-
hood of Arts, for which the Greek verbs were far
more irregular. It was not only the love of know-
ledge that animated her: as a bachelor she might
become a head-mistress, nay, might even aspire to
follow the lead of her dashing elder sister and teach
in a wealthy family that treated you as one of itself.
Not that Kitty had ever matriculated, but an ugly
duckling needs many plumes of learning ere it can
ruffle itself like a beautiful swan.
Who should now come upon the promenading stu-
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 251
dent but Sugarman the Shadchan, his hand full of
papers, and his blue bandanna trailing from his left
coat-tail !
"Ah, you are the very person I was coming to
see," he cried gleefully in his corrupt German ac-
cent. " What is your sister's address now ? "
" Why ? " said Salvina distrustfully.
" I have a fine young man for her ! "
Salvina's pallid cheek coloured with modesty and
resentment. " My sister doesn't need your services."
" Maybe not," said Sugarman, unruffled. " But
the young man does. He saw your sister once
years ago, before he went to the Cape. Now he is
a Takif (rich man) and wants a wife."
" He's not rich enough to buy Kitty.." Salvina's
romantic soul was outraged, and she spoke with un-
wonted asperity.
" He is rich enough to buy Kitty all she wants.
He is quite in love with her — she can ask for any-
thing."
" Then let him go and tell her so himself. What
does he come to you for? He must be a very poor
lover."
" Poor ! I tell you he is rolling in gold. It's the
luckiest thing that could have happened to your
family. You will all ride in your carriage. You
ought to fall on your knees and bless me. Your
sister is not so young any more, at nineteen a girl
can't afford to sniff. Believe me there are thousands
2o2 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
of girls who would jump at the chance — yes, girls
with dowries, too. And your sister hasn't a penny."
" My sister has a heart and a soul," retorted Sal-
vina witheringly, " and she wants a heart and a soul
to sympathize with hers, not a money-bag."
"Then, won't you take a ticket for the lotteree?"
rejoined Sugarman pleasantly. "Then you get a
money-bag of your own."
" No, thank you."
" Not even half a ticket? Only thirty-six shillings!
You needn't pay me now. I trust you."
She shook her head.
" But think — I may win you the great prize — a
hundred thousand marks."
The sum fascinated Salvina, and for an instant her
imagination played with its marvellous potentialities.
They could all move to the country, and there among
the birds and the flowers she could study all day
long, and even try for a degree with Honours. Her
father would be saved from the cigar factory, her
sister from exile amid strangers, her mother should
have a servant, her brother the wife he coveted. All
her Spitalfields circle had speculated through Sugar-
man, not without encouraging hits. She smiled as
she remembered the vendor of slippers who had won
sixty pounds and was so puffed up that when his
wife stopped in the street to speak to a shabby ac-
quaintance, he cried vehemently, " Betsey, Betsey,
do learn to behave according to your station."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 263
" You don't believe me ? " said Sugarman, mis-
apprehending her smile. "You can read it all for
yourself. A hundred thousand marks, so sure my
little Nehemiah shall see rejoicings. Look!"
But Salvina waved back the thin rustling papers
with their exotic Continental flavour. " Gambling is
wicked," she said.
Sugarman was incensed. " Me in a wicked busi-
ness ! Why, I know more Talmud than anybody in
London, and can be called up the Law as Morenu !
You'll say marrying is wicked, next. But they are
both State Institutions. England is the only country
in the world without a lottery."
Salvina wavered, but her instinct was repugnant to
money that did not accumulate itself by slow, painful
economies, and her multifarious reading had made
the word " Speculation " a prism of glittering vice.
" I daresay you think it's not wrong," she said,
" and I apologize if I hurt your feelings. But don't
you see how you go about unsettling people ? "
" Me ! Why, I settle them ! And if you'd only
give me your sister's address — "
His persistency played upon Salvina's delicate
conscience; made her feel she must not refuse the
poor man everything. Besides, the grand address
would choke him off.
" She's at Bedford Square, with the Samuelsons."
" Ah, I know. Two daughters, Lily and Mabel,"
and Sugarman instead of being impressed nodded
251 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
his head, as if even the Samuelsons were mortal and
marriageable.
" Yes, my sister is their governess and companion.
I$ut you'll only waste your time."
" You think so ? " he said triumphantly. " Look
at this likeness ! "
And he drew out the photograph of a coarse-faced
middle-aged man, with a jaunty flower in his frock-
coat and a prosperous abdomen supporting a heavily
trinketed watch-chain. Underneath swaggered the
signature, " Yours truly, Moss M. Rosenstein."
Salvina shuddered : " He was wise to send you"
she said slyly.
" Is it not so ? Ah, and your brother, too, would
have done better to come to me instead of falling in
love with a girl with a hundred pounds. But I bear
your family no grudge, you see. Perhaps it is not
too late yet. Tell Lazarus that if he should come to
break with the Jonases, there are better fish in the
sea — gold fish, too. Good-bye. We shall both dance
at your sister's wedding." And he tripped off.
Salvina resumed her Greek, but the grotesque
aorists could not hold her attention. She was hun-
gry and worn out, and even when her mother came,
it would be some time before her evening meal could
be prepared. She felt she must sit down, if only on
her doorsteps, but their whiteness was inordinately
marred as by many dirty boots — she wondered whose
and why — and she had to content herself with lean-
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 255
ing against the stucco balustrade. And gradually as
the summer twilight faded, the grammar dropped in
her hand, and Salvina fell a-dreaming.
What did she dream of, this Board School drudge,
whose pasty face was craned curiously forward on
sloping shoulders ? Was it of the enchanted land of
love of which Sugarman had reminded her, but over
whose roses he had tramped so grossly ? Alas !
Sugarman himself had never thought of her as a
client for any but the lottery section of his business.
Within, she was one glow of eager romance, of
honour, of quixotic duty, but no ray of this pierced
without to give a sparkle to the eye, a colour to the
cheek. No faintest dash of coquetry betrayed the
yearning of the soul or gave grace to walk or gesture :
her dress was merely a tidy covering. Her exquisite
sensibility found bodily expression only as a clumsy
shyness.
Poor Salvina !
II
At last the welcome jar and creak of the gate
awoke her.
" Why, I thought you knew I had to go to the Bor-
ough ! " began a fretful voice, forestalling reproach,
and a buxom woman resplendent with black satin
and much jewellery came up the tiny garden-path.
" It doesn't matter, mother — I haven't been wait-
ing long."
266 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Well, you know how difficult it is to get a 'bus in
this weather — at least if you want to sit outside,
and it always makes my head ache frightfully to go
inside — I'm not strong and young like you — and
such a long way, I had to change at the Bank, and
I made sure you'd get something to eat at one of the
girls', and go straight to the People's Palace."
Still muttering, Mrs. Brill produced a key, and
after some fumbling threw open the door. Both
made a step within, then both stopped, aghast.
"It's the wrong house," thought Salvina confusedly,
conscious of her power of making such mistakes.
" Kisshuf (witchcraft) !" whispered her mother,
terrified into her native idiom. The passage lay
before them, entirely bare of all its familiar colour
and furniture : the framed engravings depicting the
trials of William Lord Russell, in the Old Bailey,
and Earl Stafford in Westminster Hall, the flower-
pots on the hall table, the proudly purchased hat-
rack, the metal umbrella-stand, all gone ! And
beyond, facing them, lay the parlour, an equally for-
lorn vacancy striking like a blast of chilly wind
through its wide-open door.
" Thieves ! " cried Mrs. Brill, reverting from the
supernatural and the Yiddish. " Murder ! I'm
ruined ! They've stolen my house ! "
" Hush ! Hush ! " said Salvina, strung to calm by
her mother's incoherence. " Let us see first what
has really happened."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 267
" Happened ! Haven't you got eyes in your head ?
All the fruit of my years of toil ! " And Mrs. Brill
wrung her jewelled hands. "Your father would
have me call on those Sperlings, though I told him
they'd be glad to dance on my tomb. And why
didn't Lazarus stay at home ? "
" You know he has to be out looking for work."
" And my gilt clock that I trembled even to wind
up, and the big vase with the picture on it, and my
antimacassars, and my beautiful couch that nobody
had ever sat upon ! Oh my God, oh my God ! "
Leaving her mother moaning out a complete in-
ventory in the passage, Salvina advanced into the
violated parlour. It was an aching void. On the
bare mantelpiece, just where the gilt clock had an-
nounced a perpetual half-past two, gleamed an un-
stamped letter. She took it up wonderingly. It was
in her father's schoolboyish hand, addressed to her
mother. She opened it, as usual, for Mrs. Brill did
not even know the alphabet, and refused steadily to
make its acquaintance, to the ironic humiliation of
the Board School teacher.
" You would not let me give you Get" [ran the letter abruptly],
"so you have only yourself to blame. I have left the clothes in
the bed-rooms, but what is mine is mine. Good-bye.
"MICHAEL BRILL.
" P.S. — Don't try to find me at the factory. I have left."
Salvina steadied herself against the mantelpiece
till the room should have finished reeling round.
268 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
Get! Her father had wanted to put away her
mother ! Divorce, departure, devastation — what
strange things were these, come to wreck a prosper-
ity so slowly built up !
" Quick, Salvina, there goes a policeman ! " came
her mother's cry.
The room stood still suddenly. " Hush, hush,
mother," Salvina said imperiously. "There's no
thief ! " She ran back into the passage, the letter
in her hand.
A fierce flame of intelligence leapt into the
woman's face. " Ah, it's your father ! " she cried.
" I knew it, I knew he'd go after that painted widow,
just because she has a little money, a black curse on
her bones. Oh ! oh ! God in heaven ! To bring
such shame on me, for the sake of a saucy-nosed
slut whose sister sold ironmongery in Petticoat Lane
— a low lot, one and, all, and not fit to wipe my shoes
on, even when she was respectable, and this is what
you call a father, Salvina ! Oh my God, my God ! "
Salvina was by this time dazed, yet she had a
gleam of consciousness left with which to register
this culminating destruction of all her social land-
marks. What ! That monstrous wickedness of
marquises and epauletted officers which hovered
vaguely in the shadow-land of novels and plays had
tumbled with a bang into real life ; had fallen not
even into its natural gilded atmosphere, but through
the amulet-guarded doors of a respectable Jewish
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 259
family in the heart of a Hackney Terrace, amid the
horsehair couches and deal tables of homely reality.
Nay — more sordid than the romantic wickedness of
shadowland — it had even removed those couches
and tables ! And oddly blent with this tossing chaos
of new thought in Salvina's romantic brain surged
up another thought, no less new and startling. Her
father and mother had once loved each other ! They,
too, had dawned upon each other, fairy prince and
fairy princess; had laid in each other's hand that
warm touch of trust and readiness to live and die for
each other. It was very wonderful, and she almost
forgot their hostile relationship in a rapid back-
glance upon the years in which they had lived in
mutual love before her unsuspecting eyes. Their
prosaic bickering selves were transfigured : her vivid
imagination threw off the damage of the years, saw
her coarse, red-cheeked father and her too plump
mother as the idyllic figures on the lamented parlour
vase. And when her thought struggled painfully
back to the actual moment, it was with a new con-
crete sense of its tragic intensity.
"O mother, mother!" she cried, as she threw
her arms round her. The Greek grammar and the
letter fell unregarded to the floor.
The fountain of Mrs. Brill's wrongs leapt higher
at the sympathy. "And I could have had half-
a-dozen young men ! The boils of Egypt be upon
him ! Time after time I said, ' No,' though the
260 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
Shadchan bewitched my parents into believing that
Michael was an angel without wings."
" But you also thought father an angel," Salvina
pleaded.
"Yes; and now he has got wings," said Mrs.
Brill savagely.
Salvina's tears began to ooze out. Poor swain
and shepherdess on the parlour vase ! Was this,
then, how idylls ended ? " Perhaps he'll come
back," she murmured.
The wife snorted viciously. " And my furniture ?
The beautiful furniture I toiled and scraped for,
that he always grumbled at, though I saved it out
of the housekeeping money, without its costing him
a penny, and no man in London had better meals,
— hot meat every day and fish for Sabbath, even
when plaice were eightpence a pound, — and no
servant — every scrap of work done with my own
two hands! Now he carts everything away as if
it were his."
" I suppose it is by law," Salvina said mildly.
" Law ! I'll have the law on him."
" Oh, no, mother ! " and Salvina shuddered. " Be-
sides, he has left our clothes."
Mrs. Brill's eye lit up. " I see no clothes."
" In our rooms. The letter says so."
" And you still believe what he says ? " She
began to mount the stairs. " I am sure he packed
in my Paisley shawl while he was about it. It is
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 261
fortunate I wore all my jewellery. And you al-
ways say I put on too much ! "
Sustained by this unanswerable vindication of her
past policy, Mrs. Brill ascended the stairs without
further wailing.
Salvina, whose sense of romance never exalted
her above the practical, remembered now that her
brother Lazarus might come back at any moment
clamorously hungry. This pinned her to the con-
crete moment. How to get him some supper !
And her mother, too, must be faint and tired. She
ran into the kitchen, and found enough odds and
ends left to make a meal, and even a cracked tea-
pot and a few coarse cups not worth carrying
away ; and, with a sense of Robinson Crusoe ad-
venture, she extracted light, heat, and cheerfulness
from the obedient gas branch, which took on the
air of a case of precious goods not washed away
in the household wreck. When her mother at last
came down, cataloguing the wardrobe salvage in
picturesque Yiddish, Salvina stopped her curses with
hot tea. They both drank, leaning against the
kitchen-dresser, which served for a table for the cups.
Salvina's Crusoe excitement increased when her
mother asked her where they were to sleep, seeing
that even the beds had been spirited away.
" I have five shillings in my purse ; I'll go out
and buy a cheap mattress. But then there's Laza-
rus! Oh dear!"
262 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Lazarus has his own bed. Yes, yes, thank
God, we'll be able to borrow his wedding furni>
ture."
" But it's all stored away in the Jonas's attic."
A smart rat-tat at the door denoted the inoppor-
tune return of Lazarus himself. Salvina darted
upstairs to let him in and break the shock. He
was a slimmer and more elegant edition of his
father, a year older than Kitty, and taller than
Salvina by a jaunty head and shoulders.
"And why isn't the hall lamp alight?" he
queried, as her white face showed itself in the
dusky door-slit. " It looks so beastly shabby. The
only light's in the kitchen ; I daresay you and
the mater are pigging there again. Why can't
you live up to your position ? "
The unexpected reproach broke her down. " We
have no position any more," she sobbed out. And
all the long years of paralyzing economies swept
back to her memory, all the painful progress —
accelerated by her growing salary — from the
Hounsditch apartments to the bow-windows and
gas-chandeliers of Hackney !
" What do you mean ? What is the matter ?
Speak, you little fool ! Don't cry." He came
across the threshold and shook her roughly.
" Father's run away with the furniture and some
woman," she explained chokingly.
"The devil!" The smart cane slipped from his
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 263
fingers and he maintained his cigar in his mouth with
difficulty. " Do you mean to say the old man has
gone and — the beastly brute! The selfish hypo-
crite ! But how could he get the furniture ? "
" He made mother go on a visit to the Borough."
"The old fox! That's your religious chaps. I'll
go and give 'em both brimstone. Where are they ? "
"I don't know where — but you must not — it is
all too horrible. There's nothing even to sleep on.
We thought of borrowing your furniture ! "
" What ! And give the whole thing away to the
Jonases — and lose Rhoda, perhaps. Good heavens,
Sally. Don't be so beastly selfish. Think of the
disgrace, if we can't cover it up."
" The disgrace is for father, not for you."
" Don't be an idiot. Old Jonas looked down on us
enough already, and if it hadn't been for Kitty's call-
ing on him in the Samuelsons' carriage, he might
never have consented to the engagement."
" Oh, dear ! " said Salvina, melted afresh by this
new aspect. " My poor Lazarus ! " and she gazed
dolefully at the handsome youth who had divided
with Kitty the good looks of the family. " But still,"
she added consolingly, " you couldn't have married
for a long time, anyhow."
" I don't know so much. I had a very promising
interview this afternoon with the manager of Granders
Brothers, the big sponge-people."
" But you don't understand travelling in sponge."
264 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Pooh ! Travelling's travelling. There's nothing
to understand. Whatever the article is, you just tell
lies about it."
" Oh, Lazarus ! "
" Don't make eyes — you ain't pretty enough.
What do you know of the world, you who live mewed
up in a Board School ? I daresay you believe all the
rot you have to tell the little girls."
Her brother's shot made a wound he had not in-
tended. Salvina was at last reminded of her own
relation to the sordid tragedy, of what the other
teachers would think, ay, even the little girls, so
sharp in all that did not concern school-learning.
Would her pupils have any inkling of the cloud on
teacher's home ? Ah, her brother was right. This
disgrace besplashed them all, and she saw herself con-
fusedly as a tainted figure holding forth on honour
and duty to rows of white pinafores.
Ill
Meantime, her mother had toiled up — her jewels
glittering curiously in the dusk — and now poured
herself out to the fresh auditor in a breathless wail ;
recapitulated her long years of devotion and the
abstracted contents of the house. But Lazarus soon
wearied of the inventory of her virtues and furniture.
"What's the use of crying over spilt milk?" he
said. " You must get a. new jug."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 265
"A new jug! And what about the basin and the
coffee-pot and the saucepans and the plates ! And
my new blue dish with the willow-pattern. Oh, my
God ! "
" Don't be so stupid."
" She's a little dazed, Lazarus, dear. Have patience
with her. Lazarus says it's no use crying and letting
the neighbours hear you : we must make the best of
a bad job, and cover it up."
" You'll soon cover me up. I won't need my
clothes then — only a clean shroud. After twenty
years — he wipes his mouth and he goes away !
Tear the rent in your garments, children mine, your
mother is dead."
" How can any one have patience with her ? " cried
Lazarus. " One would think it was such a treat for
her to live with father. Judging by the rows you've
had, mother, you ought to be thankful to be rid of
him."
" I am thankful," she retorted hysterically. "Who
said I wasn't ? A grumbling, grunting pig, who
grudged me my horsehair couch because he couldn't
sit on it. Well, let him squat on it now with his
lady. I don't care. All my enemies will pity me,
will they? If they only knew how glad I was!"
and she broke into more sobs.
"Come, mother; come downstairs, Lazarus: don't
let us stay up in the dark."
" Not me," said Lazarus. " I'm not going down
266 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
to hear this all over again. Besides, where am I to
sit or to sleep ? I must go to an hotel." He struck
a match to relight his cigar and it flared weirdly upon
the tear-smudged female faces. " Got any money,
Salvina," he said more gently.
" Only five shillings."
"Well, I daresay I can manage on that. Good-
night, mother, don't take on so, it'll be all the same
a hundred years hence." He opened the door;
then paused with his hand on the knob, and said
awkwardly : " I suppose you'll manage to find some-
thing to sleep on just for to-night."
" Oh, yes," said Salvina reassuringly ; " we'll man-
age. Don't worry, dear."
" I'll be in the first thing in the morning. We'll
have a council of war. Good-night. It is a beastly
mean trick," and he went out meditatively.
When he was gone, Salvina remembered that the
five shillings were for the mattress. But she further
bethought herself that the sum would scarcely have
sufficed even for a straw mattress, and that the little
gold ring Kitty had given her when she matriculated
would fetch more. Her mother's jewellery must be
left sacred ; the poor creature was smarting enough
from the sense of loss. Bidding her sit on the stairs
till she returned, she hastened into Mare Street, the
great Hackney highway, christened "The Devil's
Mile " by the Salvation Army. Early experience
nad familiarized her with the process of pawning,
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 267
but now she slipped furtively into the first pawn-
shop and did not stay to make a good bargain. She
spent on a telegram to the central post-office six-
pence of the proceeds, so that she might be able to
draw out without delay the few pounds she had laid
by for her summer holiday. While she was pur-
chasing the mattress at the garishly illuminated fur-
niture store, the words " Hire System " caught her
eye, and seemed a providential solution of the posi-
tion. She broached negotiations for the furnishing
of a bed-room and a kitchen, minus carpet and oil-
cloth (for these would not fit the cheaper apartments
into which they would now have to revert), but she
found there were tedious formalities to be gone
through, and that her own signature would be in-
valid, as she was legally a child. However, she was
able to secure the porterage of the mattress at once,
and, followed by a bending Atlas, she hurried back
to her mother — who sat on her stair, moaning — and
diverted her from her griefs by teaching her to sign
her name, in view of the legal exigencies of the
morrow. It was a curious wind-up to her day's
teaching. Poor Mrs. Brill's obstinate objection to
education had to give way at last under such unex-
pected conditions, but she insisted on the shortest
possible spelling, and so the uncouth " Esther Brills "
pencilled at the top of the sheet were exchanged for
more flowing " E. Brills " lower down. Even then,
the good woman took the thing as a pictorial flourish,
268 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
or a section of a map, and disdained acquaintance
with the constituent letters, so that her progress in
learning remained only nominal.
Then the "infant" at law put her mother to bed
and lay down beside her on the mattress, both in
their clothes for lack of blankets. The mother soon
dozed off, but the " child " lay turning from side to
side. The pressure of her little tasks had dulled the
edge of emotion, but now, in the silence of the night,
the whole tragic position came back with all its sor-
did romanticism, its pathetic meanness; and when
at last she slept, its obsession lay heavy upon her
dreams, and she sat at her examination desk in the
London University, striving horridly to recall the
irregularities of Greek verbs, and to set them down
with a pen that could never dip up any ink, while
the inexorable hands of the clock went round, and
her father, in the coveted Bachelor's gown, waited to
spirit away her desk and seat as soon as the hour
should strike.
IV
The next morning Salvina should have awakened
with a sense through all her bones that it was Friday
— the last day of the school-week, harbinger of such
blessed rest that the mere expectation of it was also
a rest. Alas ! she woke from the nightmare of sleep
to the nightmare of reality, and the week-end meant
only time to sound the horror of the new situation.
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 269
In one point alone, Friday remained a consolation.
Only one day to face her fellow-teachers and her
children, and then two days for hiding from the
world with her pain, for preparing to face it again ;
to say nothing of the leisure for practical recupera-
tion of the home.
Lazarus turned up so late that the council of war
was of the briefest and held almost on the door-step,
for Salvina must be in school by nine. The thought
of staying away — even in this crisis — simply did
not occur to her.
She arranged that Lazarus was to meet her in the
city after morning school, when she would have
drawn her savings from the post-office: more than
enough for the advance on the furniture, which must
be delivered that very afternoon. Lazarus had been
for telegraphing at once to Kitty for assistance, but
Salvina put her foot down.
" Let us not frighten her — I will go and break it
to her on Sunday afternoon. You know she can't
spare any money ; it is as much as she can do to
dress up to the position."
" I do hope the scandal won't spread," said Laza-
rus gloomily. " It would be a nice thing if she lost
the position and fell back on our hands."
"Yes, he has ruined all my children," sobbed Mrs.
Brill, breaking out afresh. " But what did he care ?
Ah, if it wasn't for me, you would have been in the
workhouse long ago."
270 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Well then, go and do your Sabbath marketing or
else we'll have to go there now," said Lazarus not
unkindly ; " the tradespeople will give you credit."
" Rather! They know / never ran away."
"And mind, mother," said Salvina as she snatched
up her Greek grammar, " mind the fried fish is as
good as usual ; we're a long way from the workhouse
yet ! And if you're not in to-night, Lazarus," she
whispered as she ran off, " I'll never forgive you."
"Well, I'm blowed ! " said Lazarus, looking after
the awkward little figure, flying to catch the 8.21.
" Yes, but I've no frying pan ! " Mrs. Brill called
after her.
" You'll have it by this afternoon," Salvina called
back reassuringly.
The sun was already strong, the train packed, and
Salvina stood so jammed in that she could scarcely
hold her grammar open, and the irregular verbs
danced before her eyes even more than their strange
moods and tenses warranted. At the school her
thrilling consciousness of her domestic tragedy inter-
posed some strange veil between her and her fellow-
teachers, and they seemed to stand away from her,
enveloped in another atmosphere. She heard her-
self teaching — five elevens are fifty-five — and her
own self seemed to stand away from her, too. She
noted without protest two of the girls pulling each
other's hair in some far-off hazy world, and the an-
swering drone of the class — five elevens are fifty-
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 271
five — seemed like the peaceful buzzing of a gigantic
blue-bottle on a drowsy afternoon. It occurred to
her suddenly that she was fifty-five years old, and
when Miss Rolver, the Christian head-mistress, came
into her room, Salvina had an unexpected feeling of
advantage in life-experience over this desiccated
specimen of femininity, redolent of time-tables, rec-
ord-parchments, foolscap, and clean blotting-paper.
Outside all this scheduled world pulsed a large
irregular life of flesh and blood ; all the primitive
verbs in every language were irregular, it suddenly
flashed upon her, and she had an instant of vivifying
insight into the Greek language she had unquestion-
ingly accepted as " dead " ; saw Grecian men and
women breathing their thoughts and passions —
even expressing the shape of their throats and lips
— through these erratic aorists.
" You look tired, dear," said the head-mistress.
" It's the heat," Salvina murmured.
" Never mind ; the summer holidays will soon be
here."
It sounded a mockery. Summer holidays would
no longer mean Ramsgate, and delicious days of
study on sunny cliffs, with the relaxation of novels
and poems. These slowly achieved luxuries of the
last two years were impossible for this year at least.
And this thought of being penned up in London dur-
ing the dog days oppressed her : she felt choking.
Her next sensation was of water sprinkling on her
272 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
face, and of Miss Rolver's kind anxious voice asking
her if she felt better. Instead of replying, Salvina
wondered in a clouded way where the school-managers
were.
Even her na'fve mind had been struck at last by
the coincidence that whenever, after a managers'
meeting, these omnipotent ladies and gentlemen from
a higher world strolled through the school, Miss
Rolver happened to be discovered in an interesting
attitude. If it was the play-hour, she would be — for
this occasion only — in the playground leading the
games, surrounded by clamorously affectionate little
ones. If it was working-time, she was found as a
human island amid a sea of sewing : billows of pina-
fores and aprons heaved tumultuously around her.
Or, with a large air of angelic motherhood, she would
be tying up some child's bruised finger. Her great-
est invention — so it had appeared to the scrupulous
Salvina — was the stray, starved, half-frozen, sweet
little kitten, lapping up milk from a saucer before a
ruddy blazing fire at the very instant of the great
personages' passage. How they had beamed, one
and all, at the touching sight.
Hence it was that Salvina's dazed vision . now
sought vaguely for the school-managers. But in
another instant she realized that this present solici-
tude was not for another but for herself, and that it
had nothing of the theatrical. A remorseful pang of
conscience added to her pains. She said tremulously
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 273
that she felt better and was gently chided for over-
study and admonished to go home and rest.
" Oh, no, I am all right now," she responded in-
stinctively.
" But I'll take your class," Miss Rolver insisted,
and Salvina found herself wandering outside in the
free sunshine, with a sense of the forbidden. An
acute consciousness of Board School classes droning
dutifully all over London made the streets at that
hour strange and almost sinful. She went to the
post-office and drew out as much of her money as
red tape allowed, and while wandering about in
Whitechapel waiting for the hour of her rendezvous
with Lazarus, she had time to purchase a coarse but
white table-cloth, a plush cover embroidered with
" Jerusalem " in Hebrew, and a gilt goblet. These
were for the Friday-night table.
V
But the Sabbath brought no peace. Though mir-
acles were wrought in that afternoon, and, except
that it was laid in the kitchen, the Sabbath table had
all its immemorial air, with the consecration cup, the
long plaited loaves under the " Jerusalem," cover, and
the dish of fried fish that had grown to seem no less
religious ; yet there could be no glossing over the
absence of the gross-paunched paternal figure that
had so unctuously presided over the ceremony. His
274 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
vacant place held all the emptiness of death, and all
the fulness of retrospective profanation. How like
he was to Moss M. Rosenstein, Salvina thought sud-
denly. Lazarus had ignored the gilt goblet and the
shilling bottle of claret, and was helping himself from
the coffee-pot, when his mother cried bitterly :
" What ! are we to eat like the animals ? "
" Oh bother! " Lazarus exclaimed. "You know I
hate all these mummeries. I wouldn't say if they
really made people good. But you see for your-
self—"
"Oh, but you must say Kiddush, Lazarus," said
Salvina, half pleadingly, half peremptorily. She
fetched the prayer-book and Lazarus, grumbling in-
articulately, took the head of the table, and stumbled
through the prayer, thanking God for having chosen
and sanctified Israel above all nations, and in love and
favour given it the holy Sabbath as an inheritance.
But oh ! how tamely the words sounded, how void
of that melodious devotion thrilling through the joy-
ous roulades of the father. It was a sort of symbol
of the mutilated home, and thus Salvina felt it. And
she remembered the last ceremony at which her
father had presided — that of the Separation when
the Sabbath faded into work-day — the ceremony of
Division between the Holy and the Profane, and
she shivered to think it had indeed marked for the
unhappy man the line of demarcation. •
" Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who hallowest
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 275
the Sabbath," Lazarus was mumbling, and in another
instant he was awkwardly distributing the ritual
morsels of bread.
But the mother could not swallow hers, for indig-
nant imaginings of the rival Sabbath board. " May
her morsel choke her!" she cried, and nearly was
choked by her own.
" Oh, mother, do not mention her — neither her nor
him. — Never any more," said Salvina. And again
the new note of peremptoriness rang in her voice,
and her mother stopped suddenly short like a scolded
child.
" Will you have plaice or sole, mother ? " Salvina
went on, her voice changing to a caress.
" I can't eat, Salvina. Don't ask me."
" But you must eat." And Salvina calmly helped
her to fish and to coffee and put in the lumps of
sugar; and the mother ate and drank with equal calm,
as if hypnotized.
All through the meal Salvina's mind kept swinging
betwixt the past and the future. Strange odds and
ends of scenes came up in which her father figured,
and her old and new conceptions of him interplayed
bewilderingly. Her sudden vision of him as Moss
M. Rosenstein persisted, and could only be laid by
concentrating her thoughts on the early days when
he used to take herself and Kitty to Victoria Park,
carrying her in his arms when she was tired. But it
made her cry to see that little tired happy figure
276 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
cuddling the trusted giant, and she had to jump for
refuge into the future.
They must move back to Hounsditch. She must
give up the idea of becoming a " Bachelor " : the
hours of evening study must now be devoted to teach-
ing others. Her University distinction was already
great enough to give her an unusual chance of pupils,
while her " Yiddish," sucked in with her mother's
milk, had become exceptionally good German under
study. She might hope for as much as two shillings
an hour and thus earn a whole sovereign extra per
week.
And 'over this poor helpless blighted mother, she
would watch as over a child. All the maternal in-
stinct in her awoke under the stress of this curiously
inverted position. Her remorseful memory sum-
moned a penitential procession of bygone petulances.
Never again would she be cross or hasty with this ill-
starred heroine. Yes, her mother was become a fig-
ure of romance to her, as well as a nursling. This
woman, whose prosaic humours she had so often fret-
ted under, was in truth a woman who had lived and
loved. She had ceased to be a mere mother ; a large
being who presided over one's childhood. And this
imaginative insight, she noted with surprise, would
never have been hers but for her father's desertion :
like one who realizes the virtues of a corpse, she had
waited till love was slain to perceive its fragrance.
A postman's knock, as the meal was finished, made
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 277
her heart give a corresponding pit-a-pat, and she
turned quite faint. All her nerves seemed to be on
the rack, expecting new sensational developments.
The letter was for Lazarus.
" Ah, you abomination ! " cried his mother, as he
tore open the envelope. He did not pause to defend
his Sabbath breaking, but cried joyfully: "What did
I tell you ? Granders Brothers offer me travelling
expenses and a commission ! "
" Oh, thank God, thank God ! " ejaculated his
mother, her eyes raised piously. He took up his hat.
" Where are you going ? " said Mrs. Brill.
" To see Rhoda of course. Don't you think she's
as anxious about it as you ? "
Salvina's eyes were full of sympathetic tears :
" Yes, yes, let him go, mother."
VI
On the Sunday afternoon, feeling much better for
the Saturday rest, and scrupulously gloved, shod,
and robed in deference to the grandeur of her des-
tination, Salvina boarded an omnibus, and after a
tedious journey, involving a walk at the end, she
arrived at the West End square in which her sister
bloomed as governess and companion in a newly
enriched Jewish family. She stood an instant in
the porch to compose herself for the tragic task
before her and felt in her pocket to be sure she had
278 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
not lost the little bottle of smelling-salts with which
she had considerately armed herself, in anticipation
of a failure of Kitty's nerves. Then she knocked
timidly at the door, which was opened by a speck-
less boy in buttons, who also opened up to her
imagination endless vistas of aristocratic association.
His impressive formality, as of the priest of a shrine,
seemed untinged by any remembrance that on her
one previous visit she had been made free of the
holy of holies. But perhaps it was not the same
boy. He was indeed less a boy to her than a row
of buttons, and less a row of buttons than a symbol
of all the elegances and opulences in which Kitty
moved as to the manner born ; the elaborate ritual
of the toilette, the sacramental shaving of poodles,
the mysterious panoramic dinners in which one had
to be constantly aware of the appropriate fork.
Salvina had not waited a minute in the imposing
hall, ere a radiant belle flew down the stairs — with
a vivacity that troubled the sacro-sanct atmosphere
— and caught Salvina in her arms.
" Oh, you dear Sally ! I am so glad to see you,"
and a fusillade of kisses accompanied the hug.
" Whatever brings you here ? Oh, and such a dowdy
frock ! You needn't flush up so, silly little child ;
nobody expects you to know how to dress like us
ignoramuses, and it doesn't matter to-day, there's no
one to see you, for they're all out driving, and I'm
lying down with a headache."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 279
" Poor Kitty. But then you ought to be out driv-
ing." She was divided between sympathy for the
sufferer, and admiration of the finished, fine lady-
hood implied in indifference to the chance of a
carriage-drive.
"Yes, but I've so many letters to write, and they
don't really drive on Sundays, just stop at house
after house, and not good houses either. It is such
a bore. They've never shaken off the society they
had before they made their money."
" Well, but that's rather nice of them."
" Perhaps, but not nice for me. But come up-
stairs and you shall have some tea."
Salvina mounted the broad staircase with a rever-
ence attuned to her own hushed footfalls, but her
task of breaking the news to her sister weighed the
heavier upon her for all this subdued magnificence.
It seemed almost profane to bring the squalid epi-
sodes of Hackney into this atmosphere, appropriate
indeed to the sinful romances of marquises and
epauletted officers, but wholly out of accord with
surreptitious furniture vans. What a blow to poor
Kitty the news would be ! She dallied weakly, till
the tea was brought by a powdered footman. Then
she had an ingenious idea for a little shock to lead
up to a greater. She would say they were going
to move. But as she took off her white glove not
to sully it with the tea and cake, Kitty cried : " Why
what have you done with my ring ? "
280 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
Here was an excellent natural opening, but Sal-
vina was taken too much aback to avail herself of it,
especially as the artificial opening preoccupied her
mind. " Oh, your ring's all right," she said hastily ;
" I came to tell you we are going to move."
Kitty clapped her hands. " Ah ! so you've taken
my advice at last ! I'm so glad. It wasn't nice for
me to stay with you at that dingy hole, even for a
day or two a year. Mustn't mother be pleased ! "
Salvina bit her lip. Her task was now heavier
than ever.
" No, mother isn't pleased. She is crying about
it."
"Crying? Disgusting. How she still hankers
after Spitalfields and the Lane ! "
" She isn't crying for that, but because father
won't go with us."
" Oh, I have no patience with father. He hasn't
a soul above red herrings and potatoes."
" Oh, yes he has. He has left us."
" What ! Left you ? " Kitty's pretty eyes opened
wide. " Because he won't move to a better house ! "
" No, we are moving to a worse house because he
has moved to a better."
" What are you talking about ? Is it a joke ? A
riddle ? I give it up."
"Father — can't you guess, Kitty? — father has
gone away. There is some other woman."
"No?" gasped Kitty. "Ha! ha! ha! ha!"
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 281
and she shook with long peals of silvery laughter.
" Well, of all the funny things ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! "
" Funny! " and Salvina looked at her sternly.
"What, don't you see the humour of it? Father
turning into the hero of a novelette. Romance and
red herrings! Passion and potatoes! Ha! ha!
ha!"
" If you had seen the havoc it wrought, you
wouldn't have had the heart to laugh."
" Oh well, mother was crying. That I understand.
But that's nothing new for her. She'd cry just as
much if he were there. The average rainfall is —
how many inches ? "
Salvina's face was stern and white. "A mother's
tears are sacred," she said in low but firm protest.
" Oh, dear me, Sally, I always forget you have no
sense of humour. Well, what are you going to do
about it ? " and her own sense of humour continued to
twitch and dimple the corners of her pretty mouth.
" I told you. We cannot afford to keep up the
house — we must go back to apartments in Spital-
fields."
Instantly Kitty's face grew as serious as Salvina's.
" Oh, nonsense ! " she said instinctively. The thought
of her family returning to the discarded shell of apart-
ments was humiliating ; her own personality seemed
being dragged back.
" We can't pay the rent. We must give a quarter's
notice at once."
282 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
"Absurd ! You'll only save a few shillings a
week. Why can't you let apartments yourselves ?
At least you would preserve a decent appearance."
"Is it worth while having the responsibility of the
rent ? There's only mother and I — we shan't need
a house."
" But there's Lazarus ! "
" He'll have a place of his own. He'll marry be-
fore our notice expires."
" That same Jonas girl ? "
"Yes."
" Ridiculous. Small tradespeople, and dreadfully
common, all the lot. I thought he'd got over his
passion for that bold black creature who's been seen
licking ice-cream out of a street-glass. To connect
us with that family ! Men are so selfish. But I still
don't see why you can't remain as you are — let your
drawing-room, say, furnished."
" But it isn't furnished."
" Not furnished. Why, I've sat on the couch my-
self."
"Yes," said Salvina, a faint smile tempering her
deadly gravity. " You are the only person who has
ever done that. But there's no couch now. Father
smuggled all the furniture away in a van."
Again Kitty's silver laughter rang out unquench-
ably.
"And you don't call that funny ! Eloped with the
chairs ! I call it killing."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 283
"Yes, for mother," said Salvina.
" Pooh ! She'll outlive all of us. I wish you were
as sure of getting the furniture back. She's not a
bad mother, as mothers go, but you take her too
seriously."
" But, Kitty, consider the disgrace ! "
" The disgrace of having a wicked parent ! I've
endured for years the disgrace of having a poor one
— and that's worse. My people — the Samuelsons,
I mean — will never even hear of the pater's esca-
pade — gossip keeps strictly to its station. And even
if they do, they know already my family's under a
cloud, and they have learned to accept me for my-
self."
"Well, I am glad you don't mind," said Salvina,
half-relieved, half-shocked.
" I mind, if it makes you uncomfortable, you dear,,
silly Sally."
" Oh, don't worry about me. I think I'll go back
to mother, now."
" Nonsense, why, we haven't begun to talk yet.
Have another cup of tea. No ? How's old Miss
What's-a-name, your head-mistress? Any more
frozen little kittens ? "
" She's very kind, really. I'm sorry I told you
about the kitten. She let me go home early on
Friday."
" Why ? To track the van ? "
" No ; I wasn't very well."
284 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
"Poor Sally !" and Kitty hugged her again. "I
daresay you were more upset than mother."
Tears came into Salvina's eyes at her sister's affec-
tionateness. " Oh, no ; but please don't talk about
it any more. Father is dead to us now."
"Then we must speak well of him."
Salvina shuddered. "He is a wicked, heartless
man, and mother and I never wish to see his face
again."
A cloud darkened Kitty's blonde brow.
" Yes, but she isn't going to marry another man, I
hope."
" How can she ? " said Salvina. " I wouldn't let
her make any public scandal."
"But aren't there funny laws in our religion —
Get and things like that — which dispense with the
English courts."
" I believe there are — I read about something of
the kind in a novel — oh, yes! and father did offer
mother Get before he went off, so I suppose he
considers his conscience clear."
"Well, I rely upon you, Sally, to see that she
doesn't marry or complicate things more. We don't
want two wicked parents."
" Of course not. But I am sure she doesn't dream
of any new complications. You don't do her justice,
Kitty. She's just broken-hearted ; a perpetual
widow, with worse than her husband's death to
lament."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 286
" Yes — her lost furniture."
" Oh, Kitty, do realize what it means."
" I do, my dear. I do realize it — it's too killing.
Passion in a Pantechnicon or Elopements economi-
cally conducted. By the day or hour. Oh, dear, oh,
dear! But do promise me, Salvina, that you won't
go back to Spitalfields."
" I must be somewhere near the school, dearest.
It will save train-fares."
Kitty pouted. " Well, you know I couldn't drive
up to see you any more; Hackney was all but outside
the radius — the radius of respectability. I couldn't
ask coachman to go to Spitalfields — unless I pre-
tended to be slumming."
"Well, pretend."
" Oh, Salvina ! I thought you were so conscien-
tious. No, I'll have to come in a cab. You're quite
sure you won't have some more tea? Oh, do, I
insist. One piece of sugar ? "
"Yes, thank you, dear. By the way, has Sugar-
man the Shadchan been here ? "
" You mean — has he gone ? "
" Oh, poor Kitty ! It was my fault. I let him
know your address. I do hope the horrid man
hasn't worried you."
" Sugarman ? "
"No — Moss M. Rosenstein."
" How pat you have his name ! But why do you
call him horrid ? "
286 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
Salvina stared. " But have you seen his photo-
graph ? "
" Oh, you can't go by photographs. He has been
here."
" What ! Sugarman had the impudence to bring
him ! "
Kitty flushed slightly. " No, he called alone —
this afternoon, just before you."
"What impertinence! A brazen commercial court-
ship ! You wouldn't receive him, of course."
" Oh, well, I thought it would be fun just to look
at him," said Kitty uneasily. " A commercial court-
ship, as you express it, is not unam using."
" I don't see anything amusing in it — it's an out-
rage."
" I told you you had no sense of humour. I find
it comic to be loved before first sight by a man who
has no /z's, but only /'s, s's, and dPs,"
" Sugarman says he did see you before loving you
— noticed you before he went to the Cape. But you
must have been a little girl then."
"He didn't tell me that — that would have been
even more romantic. He only said he fell in love
with my photograph, as paraded by Sugarman."
" Why, where should Sugarman get — "
"You never know what mother's been up to,"
interrupted Kitty dryly.
" Much more likely father."
" What's the odds ? Do have another piece of
cake."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 287
" No, thank you. But what did you say to the
man ? "
"The same as you. Don't stare so, you stupid
dear. I said, No* thank you."
"That I knew. Of course you couldn't possibly
marry a bloated creature from the Cape. I meant,
in what terms did you put him in his place ? "
" Oh, really," said Kitty, laughing, but without her
recent merriment. " This is too prejudiced. I
can't admit that mere residence in the Cape is a
disqualification."
" Oh, yes, it is. Why do they go there ? Only to
make money. A person whose one idea in life is
money can't be a nice person."
" But money isn't his one idea — now his one idea
is matrimony. That is a joke. You ought to laugh."
" It makes me cry to think that some nice girl
may be driven into marrying him just for his
money."
" Poor man ! So because of his money he is to-
be prevented from having a nice wife."
Salvina was taken aback by this obverse view.
" How is he ever to improve ? " asked Kitty, pur-
suing her advantage.
"Yes, that's true," Salvina admitted. "The best
thing would be if some nice girl could fall in love
with him. But that doesn't make his methods less
insulting. I wish all these Shadchans could be
slaughtered off."
288 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" What a savage little chit ! They often make as
good marriages as are made in heaven."
" Don't tease. You know you think as I do."
Salvina took an affectionate leave of her sister,
and walked down the soft staircase, confused but
cheerful. The boy in buttons let her out. To do
so he hurriedly put down the infant of the house
who was riding on his shoulders. Such a touch of
humanity in a row of buttons gave Salvina a new
insight and a suspicion that even the powdered foot-
man who brought the tea might have an emotion
behind his gorgeous waistcoat. But the crowds
fighting for the omnibuses that fine Sunday after-
noon depressed her again. All the seats outside
were packed, and it was only after standing a long
time on the pavement that she squeezed her way
into an inside seat. The stuffiness and jolting made
her feel sick and dizzy. By a happy accident her
fingers encountered the bottle of smelling-salts in her
pocket, and, as she pulled it out eagerly, she re-
membered it had been intended for Kitty.
VII
Lazarus remained out late that evening, and, as
he had forgotten to borrow the key, Salvina was
sitting up for him.
She utilized the time in preparing her sewing.
She was making a night-dress with dozens and dozens
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 289
of tiny tucks at the breast, all run by hand, and she
was putting into the fine calico an artistic needlework
absolutely futile, and with its perpetual " count two,
miss two," — infinitely trying to the eyes, especially
by gas-light. The insane competition of the teachers,
refining upon a Code in itself stupidly exacting, made
the needlework the most distressing of all the tasks
of the girl-teachers of that day. Salvina herself,
with her morbid conscientiousness and desire to
excel, underwent nightmares from the vexatiousness
of learning how to cut holes so that they could not
possibly be darned, and then darning them. When,
at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed
with a Brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded
with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fan-
tasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand,
it all looked easy enough. But when Salvina her-
self had to unravel a little piece of stockinette with
a real needle and then fill in the hole so as to leave
no trace of the crime, she was reduced to hysteria.
Even the coloured threads with which she worked
were a scant relief to the eye. And all this elabor-
ate fancywork was entirely useless. At home Sal-
vina was always at work, darning and mending;
never was there a defter needle. Even the " hedge-
tear-down " was neatly and expeditiously repaired, so
long as she avoided the scholastic methods. " What's
all this madness? " her mother had asked once, when
she had tried the orthodox " Swiss darning " on a
290 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
real article. And Mrs. Brill surveyed in amazement
the back of the darn, which looked like Turkish
towelling.
To-night Salvina could not long continue her tax-
ing work. Her eyes ached, and she at last resolved
to rise early in the morning and proceed with the
night-dress then. She turned the gas low, so as to
reduce the bill, and it was as if she had turned down
her own spirits, for a strange melancholy now took
possession of her in the silent fuscous kitchen in the
denuded house, and the emptiness of the other rooms
seemed to strike a chill upon her senses. There
were strange creaks and ghostly noises from all
parts. She fixed her thought on the one furnished
bed-room now occupied by her mother, as on a sym-
bol of life and recuperation. But the uncanny noises
went on; rustlings, and patterings, and Salvina felt
that she might shriek and frighten her mother. She
had almost resolved to turn up the gas, when the
sound of a harmonium came muffled through the
wall, and the softened voices of her Christian neigh-
bours sang a Sunday hymn. Salvina ceased to be
alone ; and tears bathed her cheeks, as the crude
melody lilted on. She felt absorbed in some great
light and love, which was somehow both a present
possession and a beckoning future that awaited her
soul, and it was all mysteriously mixed with the blue
skies of Victoria Park, in those far-off happy days
when she had gone home on her father's shoulder ;
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 291
and with the blue skies of those enchanted sunlit
lands of art and beauty, in which she would wander
in the glorious future, when she should be making a
hundred and fifty a year. Paris, Venice, Athens,
Madrid — how the mellifluous syllables thrilled her !
One by one, in her annual summer holiday, she and
her mother might see them all. Meantime she saw
them all in her imagination, bathed in the light that
never was on sea or land, and it was not her mother
with whom she journeyed but a noble young Bayard,
handsome and tender-hearted, who had impercepti-
bly slipped into her mother's place. Poor Salvina,
with all her modesty, never saw. herself as others saw
her, never lost the dream of a romantic love. Laza-
rus's rat-tat recalled her to reality.
" I know I'm late," he said, with apologetic defi-
ance, " but it's no pleasure to sit in an empty house.
You may like it, but your tastes were always peculiar,
and that straw mattress on the floor isn't inviting."
" I am so sorry, dear. But then mother tmist have
the bed."
" Well, it won't last long, thank Heaven. I made
the Jonases consent to the marriage before the scan-
dal gets to them."
" So soon ! " said Salvina with unconscious social
satire.
" Yes, and we'll have our honeymoon travelling
for Granders Brothers. She's a good sort, is Rhoda,
she doesn't mind gypsying. And that saves us from
292 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
the expense of completing the furniture." He
paused, and added awkwardly, " I'd lend it to you,
only that might give us away."
" But we don't need the furniture, dear, and don't
you think they ought to know — it is the rest of the
world that it doesn't concern."
"They are bound to know after the marriage.
We've kept it dark so far, thanks to being in Hack-
ney away from our old acquaintances and to mother's
stinginess in not having encouraged new people to
drop in. I've told the Jonases father was ill and
might have to go away for his health. That'll pave
the way to his absence from the wedding. It sounds
quite grand. We'll send him to a German Spa."
Salvina did not share her brother's respect for old
Jonas, who bored her with trite quotations from Eng-
lish literature or the Hebrew Bible. He was in sooth
a pompous ignoramus, acutely conscious of being an
intellectual light in an ignorant society ; a green
shade he wore over his left eye added to his air of
dignified distinction. Foreign Jews in especial were
his scorn, and he seriously imagined that his own
stereotyped phrases uttered with a good English pro-
nunciation gave his conversation an immeasurable
superiority over the most original thinking tainted by
a German or Yiddish accent. Salvina's timid correc-
tions of his English quotations made him angry and
imperilled Lazarus's wooing. The young man was
indeed the only member of the family who cultivated
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 293
relations with the Jonases, though now it would be
necessary to exchange perfunctory visits. Lazarus
presided over these visits in fear and trembling,
glossing over any slips as to the father, who was
gone to the seaside for his health. On second
thoughts, Lazarus had not ventured on a German
Spa.
VIII
Ere the wedding-day arrived, Salvina had to go to
the seaside. Clacton-on-Sea was the somewhat ple-
beian place and the school-fete the occasion. Salvina
looked forward to it without much personal pleasure,
because of the responsibilities involved, but it was a
break in the pupil-teacher's monotonous round of
teaching at the school and being taught at the
Centres ; and in the actual expedition the children's
joy was contagious and made Salvina shed secret
tears of sympathy. Arrived at the beach of the
stony, treeless, popular watering-place, most of the
happy little girls were instantly paddling in the surf
with yells of delight, while the tamer sort dug
sand-pits and erected castles. Salvina, whose office
on this occasion was to assist an "assistant teacher,"
had to keep her eye on a particular contingent. She
sat down on the noisy sunlit sands with her back to
the sea-wall so as to sweep the field of vision. Her
nervous conscientiousness made her count her sheep
at frequent intervals, and be worried over missing
294 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
now this one, now that one. How her heart beat
furiously and then almost stopped, when she saw a
child wading out too far. No, decidedly it was a
trying form of pleasure for the teacher. One bright
little girl who had never beheld the sea before picked
up a wonderfully smooth white pebble, and bringing
it to Salvina asked if it was worth any money.
Salvina held it up, extemporizing an object lesson for
the benefit of the little bystanders.
" No," she said, " this is not worth any money, be-
cause you can get plenty of them without trouble,
and even beautiful things are not considered valuable
if anybody can have them. This stone was polished
without charge by the action of the waves washing
against it for millions and millions of years, and if
it—"
The sudden blare of a brass band on the other side
of the sea-wall made her turn her head, and there,
in a brand-new room of a brand-new house on the
glaring Promenade, a room radiating blatant pros-
perity from its stony balcony, she perceived her
father, in holiday attire, and by his side a woman,
buxom and yellow-haired. A hot wave of blood
seemed to flood Salvina up to the eyes. So there
he was luxuriating in the sun, rich and careless. All
her homely instincts of work and duty rose in burn-
ing contempt. And poor Mrs. Brill had to remain
cooped at home, drudging and wailing. For a second
she felt she would like to throw the stone at him, but
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 295
her next feeling was pain lest the sight of her should
painfully embarrass him ; and turning her face swiftly
seawards she went on, with scarce a pause percepti-
ble to the little girls, " If it gets worn away some
more millions of years, it will be ground down to
sand, like all the other stones that were once here,"
and as she spoke, she began to realize her own words,
and a tragic sense of her own insignificance in this
eternal wash of space and time seemed to reduce her
to a grain of sand, and blow her about the great
spaces. But the mood passed away before a fresh
upwelling of concrete resentment against the self-
pampered pair at the Promenade window. Never-
theless, her feeling of how their seeming satisfaction
would be upset at the sight of her, made her carefully
minimize the contingency, and the dread of it hovered
over the day, adding to the worries over the children.
But she vowed that her mother should be revenged ;
she, too, poor wronged one, should wallow in Prome-
nade luxury in her future holidays ; no more should
she be housed in back streets without sea-views.
At night, after Mrs. Brill was in bed, Salvina could
not resist saying to Lazarus, whose supper she had
been keeping hot for him : " How strange ! Father
is at the seaside."
"The dickens!" He paused, fork in hand.
"You saw him at Clacton-on-Sea ? "
" Yes, but don't tell mother. So we didn't tell a
lie after all. I'm so glad."
296 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Oh, go to blazes, you and your conscience.
Where was he staying?"
" In a house in the very centre of the Promenade ;
it's simply shocking ! "
" Make me some fresh mustard, and don't moralize.
Did you have a good time ? "
" Not very ; a little cripple-girl in my class went
paddling, and joking, and dropped her crutch, and
it floated away — "
"Bother your little cripple-girls. They always
seem to be in your class ! "
" Because my class is on the ground floor."
"Ha! ha! ha! Just your luck. By the way,"
he became grave, "look what a beastly letter from
Kitty ! Not coming to the wedding. I call it
awfully selfish of her."
Kitty wrote her deep regrets, but her people had
suddenly determined to go abroad and she could not
lose this chance of seeing the world ; " the gov-
erness's honeymoon," she christened it. Paris,
Switzerland, Rome, — all the magic places were to
be hers, — and Salvina, reading the letter, gasped
with sympathy and longing.
But the happy traveller was represented at the
wedding by a large bronze-looking knight on horse-
back, which towered in shining green over the in-
significant gifts of the Jonas's circle; the utilitarian
salad-bowls, and fish-slices, and dessert sets. One
other present stood out luridly, but only to Salvina.
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 297
It was a glossy arm-chair, and on the seat lay a
card : " From Rhoda's loving father-in-law." When
Salvina first saw this — at a family card-party, the
Sunday evening before the wedding — she started
and flushed so furiously that Lazarus had to give her
a warning nudge, and to whisper : " Only for appear-
ance." At the supper-table old Jonas, who carved
and jested with much appreciation of his own skill in
both departments, referred facetiously to the absent
father, who might, nevertheless, be said to be " in the
chair " on that occasion.
Salvina dressed her mother as carefully for the
ceremony as though Kitty's fears were being real-
ized and Mrs. Brill was the bride of the occasion ;
and so debonair a figure emerged from the ordeal
that you could recognize Kitty's mother instead of
Salvina's. Lazarus had spent his farewell evening
of bachelorhood at an hotel, justly complaining
that a mirrorless bed-room with a straw mattress
was no place for a bridegroom to issue from.
Never had bridegroom been so ill-treated, he grum-
bled ; and he shook his fist imaginatively at the
father who had despoiled him.
But he joined his mother and sister in the cab;
and as it approached the synagogue, he said sud-
denly : " Don't be shocked — but I rather expect
father will be at the Shool (synagogue)."
" What ! " and Mrs. Brill appeared like to faint.
" He wouldn't have the cheek," Salvina said
298 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
reassuringly, as she pulled out the smelling-salts
which Kitty had not needed.
" He wouldn't have the cheek not to come,"
said Lazarus. " I asked him."
" You ! " They glared at him in horror.
" Yes ; I wasn't going to have things look funny
— I hate explanations. The Jonases thought there
was something queer the other night, when you
both bungled the explanation of the rheumatism,
spite all my coaching."
" But where did you find him ? " said the mother
excitedly.
" At Clacton-on-Sea."
Salvina bit her lip.
" I sent in my card, — ' Laurence Beryl, of Gran-
ders Brothers.' When he saw me, I thought he
would have had a fit. I told him if he didn't
come up to the wedding and play heavy father,
I'd summons him — "
" Summons him ! " echoed Mrs. Brill.
"For stealing my old arm-chair. I remembered
— ha ! ha ! ha ! — it was I that had bought the
easy-chair for myself, when we lived in Spitalfields
and had only wooden chairs."
" So he did send that easy-chair ! " said Salvina.
"Yes; that was rather clever of him. And don't
you think it's clever of me to save appearances ? "
" It'll be terrible for mother ! " said Salvina hotly.
" Didn't you think of that ? "
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 299
" She won't have to talk to him. He'll only hang
round. Nobody will notice."
" It would have been better to tell the truth,"
cried Salvina, "or even a lie. This is only acting
a lie. And it must be as painful for him as for us."
" Serve him right — the old furniture-sneak ! "
" It was a mistake," Salvina persisted.
"Hush, hush, Salvina!" said Mrs. Brill. "Don't
disturb your brother's festival."
" He has disturbed it himself," said Salvina, burst-
ing into tears. "I wish, mother, we had not come."
" Here, here ! This is a pretty wedding," said
Lazarus.
"Hush, Salvina, hush!" said Mrs. Brill. "What
does it matter to us if a dog creeps into syna-
gogue ? "
At this point the cab stopped.
" We're not there ! " cried Mrs. Brill.
" No," Lazarus explained ; "but we pick up father
here. We must appear to arrive together."
Ere the horrified pair could protest, he opened
the door, sprang out, and pushed inside a stout,
rubicund man with a festal rose in his holiday
coat, but a miserable, shamefaced look in his eyes.
Lazarus took his seat ere a word could be spoken.
The cab rolled on.
"Good-morning, Esther," he muttered. "I of-
fered you Get"
" Silence ! " cried Salvina, as if she had been
300 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
talking to the little girls. " How dare you speak
to her? " She held her mother's hand and felt the
pulse beating madly.
" You old serpent — " began Mrs. Brill hotly.
"Mother!" pleaded Salvina; "not a word; he
doesn't deserve it."
"In Jerusalem I could have two wives," he mut-
tered. But no one replied.
The four human beings sat in painful silence,
their knees touching. The culprit shot uneasy,
surreptitious glances at his wife, so radiant in jewels
and finery and with so Kitty-like a complexion. It
was as if he saw her freshly, or as if he were
shocked — even startled — by her retaining so much
joy of life despite his desertion of her. Fortunately
the strange drive only lasted a few minutes. The
bridegroom's wedding-party passed into the syna-
gogue through an avenue of sympathetic observers.
Mr. Brill had no part to play in the ceremony.
The honours were carried off by Mr. Jonas, who
stalked in slowly, with the bride on his arm, and a
new green shade over his left eye. The rival father
hovered meekly on the outskirts of the marriage-
canopy amid a crowd of Jonases. Salvina stationed
herself and her mother on the opposite border of the
canopy, and throughout bristled, apprehensive, pro-
hibitive, fiery, like a spaniel guarding its mistress
against a bull-dog on the pounce. The bull-dog in*
deed was docile enough ; avoiding the spaniel's eye,
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 301
and trailing a spiritless tail. But the creature revived
at the great wedding-feast in the hall of a hundred
covers, and under the congratulations and the conviv-
ial influences tended to forget he was in disgrace.
The bridegroom's parents were placed together, but
Salvina changed seats with her mother, and became
a buffer between the twain, a non-conducting medium
through which the father could not communicate with
the mother. With the latter she herself maintained
a continuous conversation, and Mr. Brill soon found
it more pleasant to forget his troubles in the charms
of Mrs. Jonas, his other neighbour.
After the almond-pudding, a succession of speakers
ranging from relatives to old friends, and even the
officiating minister, gave certificates of character to
the bride and the bridegroom, amid the tears of the
ladies. Father Jonas made an elaborate speech be-
ginning, "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking,"
and interlarded with Hebrew quotations. Father
Brill expressed the pleasure it gave him to acknow-
ledge on behalf of himself and his dear wife, the kind
things which had been said, and the delight they felt
in seeing their son settled in the paths of domestic
happiness, especially in connection with a scion of the
house of Jonas, of whose virtues much had been said
so deservedly that night. Lazarus declared, amid
roars of laughter, that on this occasion only he would
respond for his dear wife, but he felt sure that for the
rest of their lives she would have the last word. Then
302 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
the tables were cleared away and dancing began, which
grew livelier as the dawn grew nearer. But long be-
fore that, Salvina had borne her mother away from
the hovering bull-dog. Not, however, without a ter-
rible scene in the homeward cab. All the volcanic
flames Salvina and etiquette had suppressed during
the day shot forth luridly. Burning lava was hurled
against her husband, against her son, against Salvina.
An impassioned inventory of the lost furniture fol-
lowed, and the refrain of the whole was that she had
been taken to a wedding, when all she wanted was a
funeral.
IX
Salvina did not count this break-down against her
mother. It was the natural revolt of nerves tried
beyond endurance by Lazarus's trick. The whole
episode intensified her sense of the romantic situation
of her mother, and of the noble courage and dignity
with which she confronted it. She wondered whether
she herself would have emerged so stanchly from
the ordeal of meeting a loved but faithless one, and
her protective pity was tempered by a new admira-
tion. Her admiration increased, when, as the secret
gradually leaked out, her mother maintained an atti-
tude of defiance against the world's sympathy, re-
fused to hear stigmatizations of her husband, even
from old Jonas, reserving the privilege of denunciation
for her own mouth and Salvina's ear.
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 303
And now began the new life of mother and daugh-
ter. With Kitty on the Continent, Lazarus married,
and the father blotted out, they had only each other.
They moved back to the skirts of the Ghetto, and
Mrs. Brill resumed with secret joy her old place
among her old cronies. Inwardly, she had fretted at
the loss of them, for which the dignity of Hackney
had been but a shadowy compensation. But to Sal-
vina she only expressed her outraged pride, the
humiliation of it all, and the poor girl, unconscious of
how happy her mother really was among the Ghetto
gossips, tortured her brain during school-hours with
the thought of her mother's lonely misery. And even
if Salvina had not been compelled to give private les-
sons in the evenings to supplement their income,
she would in any case have relinquished her Bache-
lorhood aspirations in order to give her time to her
mother. For Mrs. Brill had no resources within her-
self, so far as Salvina knew. Even the great artificial
universe of books and newspapers was closed to her.
Salvina resolved to overcome her obstinate reluctance
to learn to read, as soon as the pressure of the other
private lessons relaxed. Meantime, she lived for her
mother and her mother on her.
Oh, the bitterness of those private lessons after the
fag of the day ; the toiling to distant places on tired
feet; the grinding bargains imposed by the well-to-
do!
One of these fiends was a beautiful lady, haughty,
804 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
with fair complexion and frosted hair, and somehow
suggested to Salvina a steel engraving. She arranged
graciously that Salvina should teach her little girl
conversational German at half-a-crown an hour, but
when Salvina started on the first lesson in the luxuri-
ous sanctum, she found two sweetly dressed sisters ;
who, she was informed, coujd not bear to be sepa-
rated, and might therefore be considered one. The
steel engraving herself sat there, as if to superintend,
occasionally asking for the elucidation of a point. At
the second lesson there were two other little girls,
neighbours, the lady informed her, who had thought
it would be a good opportunity for them to learn,
too. Salvina expressed her pleasure and her grati-
tude to her patroness. At the third lesson the aunt
of the two little girls was also present with a suspi-
cious air of discipleship. When at end of the month,
Salvina presented her bill at five shillings an hour,
the patroness flew into a towering rage. What did it
matter to her how many children partook of the
hour ? An hour was an hour and a bargain a bargain.
Salvina had not the courage or the capital to resist.
And this life of ever teaching and never learning
went on, week after week, year after year. For when
her salary at the school increased, the additional
burden of Lazarus and his wife and children fell
upon her. For her feckless brother had soon
exhausted the patience of Granders Brothers ; he
had passed shiftlessly from employment to employ-
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 305
merit, frequently dependent on Salvina and his
father-in-law till old Jonas had declared, with all the
dignity of his green shade, that his son-in-law —
graceless offspring of a graceless sire — must never
darken his door-step again.
But the joy Mrs. Brill found in her grandchildren,
the filling-out of her life, repaid Salvina amply for
all the pinching necessary to subsidize her brother's
household. She winced, though, to see her mother
drop thoughtlessly into the glossy arm-chair pre-
sented by her absentee husband, and therein en-
sconced dandle Lazarus's children. Salvina was too
sensitive to remind her mother, and shrank also from
appearing fantastic. But that chair inspired a mor-
bid repugnance, and one day, taking advantage of the
fact that the stuffing began to extrude, she bought
Lazarus a new and better easy-chair without saying
why, and had the satisfaction of noting the relegation
of the old one to a bed-room.
Two bright spots of colour dappled those long,
monotonous years. One was Kitty ; the other was
the summer holiday. Kitty's mere letters from the
Continent — she wrote twice during the tour — were
a source of exhilaration as well as of instruction.
She brought nearer all those wonderful places which
Salvina still promised herself to behold one day,
though year after year she went steadily to Rams-
gate. For her mother shrank from sea-voyages and
strange places, as much as she loved the familiar
306 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
beach swarming with Jewish faces and nigger min-
strels. Even Salvina's little scheme of enthroning
her mother expensively on the parade at Clacton-on-
Sea, that mother unconsciously thwarted, though
she endured equivalent splendour at Ramsgate at
three guineas a week, with much grumbling over her
daughter's extravagance.
Once indeed when Salvina had seriously projected
Paris in the interest of her French, there had been
a quarrel on the subject. There were many quarrels
on many subjects, but it was always one quarrel and
had always the same groundwork of dialogue on
Mrs. Brill's part, whatever the temporal variations.
"A nice daughter ! To trample under foot her own
flesh and blood, because she thinks I'm dependent
on her! Well, well, do your own marketing, you
little ignoramus who don't know a skirt steak from
a loin chop ; you'll soon see if I don't earn my keep.
I earned my living before you were born, and I can
do so still. I'd rather live in one room than have
my blood shed a day longer. I'll send for Kitty —
she never stamps on the little mother. She shan't
slave her heart out any more among strangers, my
poor fatherless Kitty. No, we'll live together, Kitty
and I. Lazarus would jump at us — my own dear,
handsome Lazarus. I never see him but he tells
me how the children are crying day and night for
their granny, and why don't I go and live with him ?
He wouldn't spit upon the mother who suckled him,
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 807
and even Rhoda has more respect for me than my
own real daughter."
Such was the basal theme ; the particular vari-
ation, when the holiday was concerned, took the
shape of religious remonstrance. " And where am
I to get kosher food in Paris ? In Ramsgate I en-
joy myself; there's a kosher butcher, and all the
people I know. It's as good as London."
Tears always conquered Salvina. She had an
infinite patience with her mother on these occasions,
not resenting the basal theme, but regarding it as
a mere mechanic explosion of nervous irritation,
generated by her lonely life. Sometimes she forgot
this and argued, but was always the more sorry
afterward. Not that she did not enjoy Ramsgate.
Her nature that craved for so much and was con-
tent with so little found even Ramsgate a Paradise
after a year of the slum-school, to which she always
returned looking almost healthy. But this constant
absorption in her mother's personality narrowed her
almost to the same mental bookless horizon. All
the red blood of ambition was sucked away as by
a vampire ; her energy was sapped and the unchang-
ing rut of school-existence combined to fray away
her individuality. She never went into any society ;
the rare invitation to a social event was always re-
fused with heart-shrinking. Every year made her
more shy and ungainly, more bent in on herself,
and on the little round of school and home life,
308 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
%
which left her indeed too weary in brain and body
for\aught beside. She sank into the scholastic old
maid, unconsciously taking on the very gait and
accent of Miss Rolver, into the limitations of whose
life she had once had a flash of insight. Yet she
was unaware of her decay ; her automatic brain was
still alive in one corner, where the dreams hived and
nested. Paris and Rome and the wonder-places still
shone on the horizon, together with the noble young
Bayard, handsome and tender-hearted. And twice
or thrice a year Kitty would flash upon the scene to
remind her that there was truly a world of elegance
and adventure. Her mother had begun to worry
over the beautiful Kitty's failure to marry ; she had
imagined that in those gilded regions she would have
snapped up a South African millionaire or other
ingenuous person. How nearly Kitty had actually
come to doing so, even without the spring-board of
Bedford Square, Salvina never told her. She had
kept both Sugarman and Moss M. Rosenstein from
pestering her mother, by telling the Shadchan that
Kitty's voice and Kitty's alone weighed with Kitty
in such a matter. When the swarthy capitalist re-
turned to the Cape, despairing, Salvina had written
to congratulate her sister on her high-mindedness.
In the years that followed, she had to endure many
a bad quarter of an hour of maternal reproach be-
cause Kitty did not marry, but Mrs. Brill's vengeance
was unconscious. Kitty herself never heard a word
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 309
of these complaints ; to her the mother was all
wreathed smiles, for she never came without bring-
ing a trinket, and every one of these trinkets meant
days of happiness. The little lockets and brooches
were shown about to all the neighbours and hitched
them on to the bright spheres which Kitty adorned.
Carriages and footmen, soft carpets and gilded mir-
rors gleamed in the air. " My Kitty ! " rolled under
Mrs. Brill's tongue like a honeyed sweet. Kitty's little
gifts, flashing splendidly on the everyday dulness,
made more impression than all the steady monoto-
nous services of Salvina. For the rest, Salvina
conscientiously repaid these gifts in kind on Kitty's
birthdays and other high days.
X
When Salvina was twenty-three years old a change
came. Lazarus ceased to demand assistance : he
was cheery and self-confident, and inclined to chaff
Salvina on her prim ways. He removed to a larger
house and her easy-chair disappeared before a more
elegant. And the apparent brightness of her
brother's prospects brightened Salvina's. Her sav-
ings increased, and, under the continuous profit of
his self-support, she was soon able to meditate
changes on her own account. Either she would give
up her night-teaching — which had been more and
more undermining her system — or she would pro-
310 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
cure her mother and Kitty a delightful surprise by
migrating back to Hackney.
Her mind hesitated between the joyous alterna-
tives, lingering voluptuously now on one, now on the
other, but somehow aware that it would ultimately
choose the latter, for Kitty on her rare visits never
failed to grumble at the lowness of the neighbour-
hood and the expense of cabs, and Mrs. Brill still
yearned to see horses pawing outside her door-step.
But an unexpected visit from Kitty, not six weeks
after her last, and equally unexpected in place — for
it was at Salvina's school — decided the matter sud-
denly.
It was about half-past twelve, and Salvina, long
since a full "assistant teacher," was seated at her
desk, correcting the German exercises of a private
pupil. Sparsely dotted about the symmetric benches
were a few demure criminals undergoing the punish-
ment of being kept in, and the air was still heavy
with the breaths and odours of the blissful departed.
A severe museum-case, with neatly ticketed speci-
mens, backed Salvina's chair, and around the spacious
room hung coloured diagrams of animals and plants.
Kitty seemed a specimen from another world as her
coquettish Leghorn hat flowering with poppies burst
upon the scholastic scene.
"Oh, dear, I thought you'd be alone," she said
pettishly.
" Is it anything important ? The children don't
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 311
matter," said Salvina. "You can tell me in German.
I do hope nothing is the matter."
" No, nothing so alarming as that," Kitty replied
in German. " But I thought I'd find you alone and
have a chat."
" I had to stay here with the children. They must
be punished."
" Seems more like punishing yourself. But have
you lunched, then ? "
" No." Salvina flushed slightly.
" No ? What's up ? A Jewish fast ! Ninth day
of Ab, fall of Temple, and funny things like that.
One always seems to stumble upon them in the East
End."
" How you do rattle on, Kitty ! " and Salvina
smiled. " No, I shall lunch as soon as these chil-
dren are released."
" But why wait for that ? "
Salvina's blush deepened. "Well, one doesn't
want to eat a good dinner before hungry girls."
"A good dinner ! Why, what in heaven's name do
you get? Truffles and plovers' eggs?"
" No, but I get a very good meal sent in from the
Cooking Centre opposite, and compared with what
these girls get at home, steak and potatoes are the
luxuries of Lucullus."
" Oh, I don't believe it. They all look fatter than
you. Then this is double punishment for you —
extra work and hunger. Do send them away. They
312 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
get on my nerves. And have your lunch like a sen-
sible being." And without waiting for Salvina's
assent : " Go along, girls," she said airily.
The girls hesitated and looked at Salvina, who
coloured afresh, but said, " Yes, this lady pleads for
you, and I said that if you all promised to — "
"Oh, yes, teacher," they interrupted enthusias-
tically, and were off.
"Well, what I came to tell you, Sally, is that I'm
not sure of my place much longer."
Salvina turned pale, and that much-tried heart of
hers thumped like a hammer. She waited in silence
for the facts.
" Lily is going to be married."
"Well? All the more reason for Mabel to have
a companion."
Kitty shook her head. " It's the beginning of the
end. Marriage is a contagious complaint in a family.
First one member is taken off, then another. But
that's not the worst."
" No ? " Poor Salvina held her breath.
" Who do you think is the happy man ? You'll
never guess."
" How sho'uld I ? I don't know their circle."
" Yes, you do. I mean, you know him."
Salvina wrinkled her forehead vainly.
" No, you'll never guess after all these years !
Moss M. Rosenstein!"
" Is it possible ? " Salvina gasped. " Lily Samuel-
son ! "
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 313
" Yes — Lily Samuelson ! "
" But he must be an old man by now."
" Well, she isn't a chicken. And you thought it
was such an outrage of him to ask for me. I sup-
pose having once got inside the door to see me, he
had the idea of aspiring higher."
" Oh, don't say higher, Kitty. Richer, that's all
— and now, I should say, lower, inasmuch as Lily
Samuelson stoops to pick up what you passed by
with scorn. And picks him up out of Sugarman's
hand, probably."
" Yes, it's all very well, and it's revenge enough in
a way to think to myself what I do think to myself,
when I see the young couple going on, and Moss is
mortally scared of me, as I shoot him a glare, now
and again. I shouldn't be surprised if he eggs them
on to get rid of me. It would be too bad to be done
out of everything."
" Well, we must hope for the best," said Salvina,
kissing her. "After all, you can always get an-
other place."
" I'm getting old," Kitty said glumly.
" You old ! " and the anaemic little school-mistress
looked with laughing admiration at her sister's un-
tarnished radiance. But when Kitty went, and
lunch came, Salvina could not eat it.
314 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
XI
It was clear, however, that of the alternatives —
giving up the night-work or returning to Hackney
— the latter was the one favoured by Providence.
Kitty might at any moment return to the parental
roof, and there must be something, that Kitty would
consider a roof, to shelter her.
On Saturday Salvina weril house-hunting alone in
Hackney, and there — as if further pointed out by
Providence — stood their old house " To let ! " It
had a dilapidated air, as if .it had stood empty for
many moons and had lost hope. It seemed to her
symbolic of her mother's fortunes, and her imagi-
nation leapt at the idea of recuperating both. Very
soon she had re-rented the house, though from an-
other landlord, and the workmen were in possession,
making everything bright and beautiful. Salvina
chose wall-papers of the exact pattern of aforetime,
and ordered the painting and decorations to repeat
the old effects. They were to move in, a few days
before the quarter.
Her happy secret shone in her cheeks, and she felt
all bright and refreshed, as if she, too, were being
painted and cleaned and redecorated. The task of
keeping it all from her mother was a great daily
strain, and the secret had to overbrim for the edifi-
cation of Lazarus. Lazarus hailed the change with
expressions of unselfish joy, that brought tears into
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 315
Salvina's eyes. He even went with her to see how
the repairs were getting on, chatted with the work-
men, disapproved of the landlord's stinginess in not
putting down new drain pipes, and made a special
call upon that gentleman.
One day on her return from school Salvina found
a postcard to the effect that the house was ready for
occupation. Salvina was for once glad that she had
never yet found time to persuade her mother to learn
to read. She went to feast her eyes on the new-old
house and came home with the key, which she hid
carefully till the Sunday afternoon, when she induced
her mother to make an excursion to Victoria Park.
The weather was dull, and the old woman needed a
deal of coaxing, especially as the coaxing must be so
subtle as not to arouse suspicion.
On the way back in the evening from the Park,
which, as there was an unexpected band playing
popular airs, her mother enjoyed, Salvina led her by
the old familiar highways and byways back to the
old home, keeping her engrossed in conversation lest
it should suddenly befall her to ask why they were
going that way. The expedient was even more
successful than she had bargained for, Mrs. Brill's
sub-consciousness calmly accepting all the old un-
changed streets and sights and sounds, while her
central consciousness was absorbed by the talk. Her
legs trod automatically the dingy Hackney Terrace
to which she had so often returned from her Park
316 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
outing, her hand pushed open mechanically the old
garden-gate, and as Salvina, breathlessly wondering
if the spell could be kept up till the very last, opened
the door with the latch-key, her mother sank wearily,
and with a sigh of satisfaction, upon the accustomed
hall-chair. In that instant of maternal apathy, the
astonishment was wholly Salvina's. That hall-chair
on which her mother sat was the very one which had
stood there in the bygone happy years ; the hat-rack
was the one with which her father had " eloped " ; on
it stood the little flower-pots and on the wall hung the
two engravings of the trials of Lord William Russell
and Earl Stafford exactly in the same place, and fac-
ing her stood the open parlour with all the old furni-
ture and colour. In that uncanny instant Salvina
wondered if she had passed through years of hal-
lucination. There was her mother, natural and un-
concerned, bonneted and jewelled, exactly as she
had come from Camberwell years ago when they had
entered the house together. Perhaps they were still
at that moment ; she knew from her studies as well
as from experience that you can dream years of har-
assing and multiplex experience in a single second.
Perhaps there had been no waking hallucination ; per-
haps the long waiting for her mother to appear with
the house-key had made her sleepy, and in that
instant of doze she had dreamed all those horrible
things — the empty house, her father's flight, his re-
appearance at her brother's marriage; the long years
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 317
of evening lessons. Perhaps she was still seventeen,
studying the Greek verbs for the Bachelorhood of
Arts, perhaps her mother was still a happy wife.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she let herself dwell
upon the wondrous possibility a second or so longer
than she believed in it. For the smell of new paint
was too potent ; it routed the persuasions of the old
furniture. And in another instant it had penetrated
through Mrs. Brill's fatigue. She started up, aware
of something subtly wrong, ere clearer consciousness
dawned.
" Michael ! " she shrieked, groping.
" Hush, hush, mother! " said Salvina, with a pain
as of swords at her heart. She felt her mother had
stumbled — with whatever significance — upon the
word of the enigma. "Another trick has been
played on us."
"A trick ! " Mrs. Brill groped further. "But you
brought me. How comes this house here? What
has happened ? "
" I wanted to surprise you. I have rented the old
house, and some one else has put in the old furniture."
" Michael is coming back ! You and your father
have plotted."
" Oh, mother ! How can you accuse me of such a
thing ! " All the expected joy of the surprise had
been changed to anguish, she felt, both for her and
for her mother. Oh, what a fatal mistake ! " I
won't have the furniture, we'll pitch it into the street
318 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
— we are going to live here together, mammy, you
and I, in the old home. We can afford it now."
She laid her cheek to her mother's, but Mrs. Brill
broke away petulantly and ran toward the parlour.
"And does he think I'll have anything to do with
him after all these years ! " she cried.
" Dear mother, he doesn't know you if he thinks
that ! " said Salvina, following her.
" No, indeed ! And a chip out of my best vase,
just as I thought! And that isn't my chair — he's
shoved me in one of a worse set. The horsehair may
seem the same, but look at the legs — no carving at
all. And where's the extra leaf of the table ? Gone,
too, I daresay. And my little gilt shovel that used
to stand in the fender here, what's become of that ?
And do you call this a sofa ? with the castors all off !
Oh, my God, she has ruined all my furniture," and
she burst into hysteric tears.
Salvina could do nothing till the torrent had spent
itself. But she was busy, thinking. She saw that
again her brother and her father had conspired to-
gether. Hence Lazarus's officiousness toward the
landlord and the workmen — that he might easily get
the entry to the house. But perhaps the conspiracy
had not the significance her mother put upon it. Per-
haps Lazarus was principal, not agent ; in the flush
of his new prosperity he had really projected a gen-
erous act ; perhaps he had resolved to put the coping-
stone on the surprise Salvina was preparing for her
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 319
mother, and had hence negotiated with the father for
the old things. If so, she felt she had not the right
to make her mother refuse them ; the rather, she
must hasten at once to Lazarus to pour out her
appreciation of his thoughtfulness.
" Come along, mother," she said at last, " don't sit
there, crying. I think Lazarus must have bought
back the things for you. You see, mammy, I wanted
to give you a little surprise, and dear Lazarus has
given me a little surprise."
" Do you really think it's only Lazarus ? " asked
Mrs. Brill, and to. Salvina's anxious ear there seemed
a shade of disappointment in the tone.
" I'm sure it is — father couldn't possibly have the
impudence. After all these years, too ! "
But when she at last got her mother to Lazarus,
that gentleman confessed aggressively that he had
been only the agent.
" I don't see why you shouldn't let the poor old
man come back," he said. " The other person died
a year ago, only nobody liked to tell mother, she was
so bristly and snappy."
"Ah," interrupted Mrs. Brill exultantly, "then
Heaven has heard my curses. May she burn in the
lowest Gehenna. May her body become one yellow
flame like her dyed hair."
" Hush ! " said Salvina sternly. " God shall judge
the dead."
" Oh, of course you always take everybody's part
320 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
against your mother." And Mrs. Brill burst into
tears again and sank into the new easy-chair.
" I do think mother's right," said Lazarus sullenly.
" Why do you stand in her way ? "
" I ? " Salvina was paralyzed.
" Yes, if it wasn't for you — "
" Mother, do you hear what Lazarus is saying ?
That I keep you from father ! "
" Father ! A pretty father to you ! He waits till
she's dead, and then he wants to creep back to us.
But let him lie on her grave. He'll swell to bursting
before he crosses my door-step."
" There, Lazarus, do you hear ? "
"Yes, I hear," he said incredulously. "But does
she know what father offers her — every comfort,
every luxury? He is rich now."
" Rich ? " said Mrs. Brill. " The old swindler ! "
" He didn't swindle — he's very sorry for the past
now, and awfully kind and generous."
Salvina had a flash of insight. " Ho ! So this is
why — She checked herself and looked round the
handsome room, and the new easy-chair in which her
mother sat became suddenly as hateful as the old.
" Well, suppose it is ? " said Lazarus defiantly.
" I don't see why we shouldn't share in his luck."
" And where does the luck come from ? " Salvina
demanded.
"What's that to do with us? From the Stock
Exchange, I believe."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 321
"And where did he get the money to gamble
with ? "
" Oh, they always had money."
Salvina's eyes blazed. The nerveless creature of
the school became a fury. "And you'd touch that ! "
" Hang it all, he owes us reparation. You, too,
Salvina — he is anxious to do everything for you.
He says you must chuck up school — it's simply
wearing you away. He says he wants to take you
abroad — to Paris."
" Oh, and so he thinks he'll get round mother by
getting round me, does he? But let him take his
furniture away at once, or we'll pitch it into the
street. At once, do you hear ? "
" He won't mind." Lazarus smiled irritatingly.
" He wants to put better furniture in, and his real
desire is to move to a big house in Highbury New
Park. But I persuaded him to put back the old
furniture — I thought it would touch you — a token,
you know, that he wanted 'auld lang syne.' '
"Yes, yes, I understood," said Salvina, and then
she thought suddenly of Kitty and a burst of hysteric
laughter caught her. " Elopements economically
conducted," went through her mind. " By the day
or hour ! " And she imagined the new phrases Kitty
would coin. "The Prodigal Father and the Pan-
technicon"— "The old Love and the old Furniture,"
and the wild laughter rang on, till Lazarus was quite
disconcerted.
322 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" I don't see where the fun comes in," he said
wrathfully. " Father is very sorry, indeed he is. He
quite cried to me — on that very chair where mother
is sitting. I swear to you he did. And you have the
heart to laugh ! "
" Would you have me cry, too ? No, no ; I am
glad he is punished."
"Yes — a nice miserable lonely old age he has
before him."
" He has plenty of money."
" You're a cold, unfeeling minx ! I don't envy the
man who marries you, Salvina."
Salvina flushed. "I don't, either — if he were to
treat me as mother has been treated."
"Yes, no one has had a life like mine, since the
world began," moaned Mrs. Brill, and her waning
tears returned in full flood.
" My poor mammy," and Salvina put a handker-
chief to the flooded cheeks. " Come home, we have
had enough of this."
Mrs. Brill rose obediently.
" Oh, yes, take her home," said Lazarus savagely,
"take her to your shabby, stinking lodging, when
she might have a house in Highbury New Park and
three servants."
" She has a house at Hackney, and I'll give her a
servant, too. Come, mother."
Salvina mopped up her mother's remaining tears,
and with an inspiration of arrogant independence,
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 323
she rang for Lazarus's servant and bade her hail a
hansom cab.
" If you don't want all Hackney to come and gaze
at a furnished road," she said, in parting, "you'll
take away that furniture yourself."
Mrs. Brill bowled homeward, half consoled for
everything by this charioted magnificence. Some
neighbours stood by gossiping as she alighted, and
then her unspoken satisfaction was complete.
XII
They moved into the new-old house, after Salvina
had carefully ascertained that the furniture had re-
turned to the cloud under which it had so long lived.
In her resentment against its reappearance, she
spent more than she could afford on the rival furni-
ture that succeeded it, and which she now studied to
make unlike it, so that quite without any touch of con-
scious taste, it became light, elegant, and even artistic
in comparison with the old horsehair massiveness.
Then began a very bad year for Salvina, even
though the Damocles sword of Kitty's dismissal
never fell, and Lily's migration to the Cape with
Moss M. Rosenstein left Kitty still in power as
companion to Mabel, to judge at least by Kitty's not
seeking the parental roof, even as visitor. Mrs. Brill's
happiness did not keep pace with the restored gran-
deurs and Salvina's own spurt of hope died down.
324 • THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
She grew wanner than ever, going listlessly to her
work and returning limp and fagged out.
" You mew me up here with not a soul to speak to
from morning till night," her mother burst forth one
day.
Salvina was not sorry to have her mother's silent
lachrymosity thus interpreted. But she regretted that
her helpless parent had not expressed her satisfaction
with gossip when the Ghetto provided it, instead of
yearning for higher scenes. She tried again to per-
suade Mrs. Brill to learn to read by way of mental
resource, and Mrs. Brill indeed made some spasmodic
efforts to master the alphabet and the vagaries of
pronunciation from an infant's primer. But her brain
was too set ; and she forgot from word to word, and
made bold bad guesses, so that even when "a fat cat
sat on a mat " she was capable of making a fat cow
eat in a mug. She struggled loyally though, except
when Salvina's attention relaxed for an instant, and
then she would proceed by leaps and bounds, like a
cheating child with the teacher's eye off it, getting
over five lines in the time she usually took to spell
out one, and paradoxically pleased with herself at her
rapid progress.
Salvina was in despair. There is no creche for
mothers, or she might have sent Mrs. Brill to one.
She bethought herself of at last laying on a servant,
as providing the desired combination of grandeur
and gossip. To pay for the servant she undertook
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 325
two hours of extra night-teaching. But the maid-of
all-work proved only an exhaustless ground for
grumbling. Mrs. Brill had never owned a servant,
and the girl's deviation from angelhood of character
and unerring perfection of action in every domestic
department were a constant disappointment and
grief to the new mistress.
" A nice thing you have done for me," she wept to
Salvina, having carefully ascertained the servant was
out of ear-shot, " to seat a mistress on my head —
and for that I must pay her into the bargain."
" Aren't you glad you haven't got three servants ? "
said Salvina, with a touch of irresistible irony.
" Don't throw up to me that you're saving me
from falling on your father. I can be my own
bread-winner. I don't want your doll's house furni-
ture that one is scared to touch — like walking
among eggshells. I'd rather live in one room and
scrub floors than be beholden to anybody. Then
I should be my own mistress, and not under a
daughter's thumb. If only Kitty would marry, then
I could go to her. Why doesn't she marry ? It
isn't as if she were like you. Is there a prettier girl
in the whole congregation ? It's because she's got
no money, my poor, hardworking little Kitty. Her
father would give her a dowry, if he were a man,
not a pig."
" Mother ! " Salvina was white and trembling.
"How can you dream of that?"
326 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Not for myself. I'd see him rot before I'd take
a farthing of his money. But I'm not domineering
and spiteful like you. I don't stand in the way of
other people benefiting. The money will only go
to some other vermin. Kitty may as well have
some."
" Lazarus has some. That's enough, and more
than enough."
" Lazarus deserves it — he is a better son to me
than you are a daughter ! " and the tears fell again.
Salvina cast about for what to do. Her mother's
nerves were no doubt entirely disorganized by her
sufferings and by the shock of Lazarus's trick.
Some radical medicine must be applied. But every
day Duty took Salvina to school and harassed her
there and drove her to private lessons afterward,
and left her neither the energy nor the brain for
further innovations. And whenever she met Lazarus
by accident — for she was too outraged to visit a
house practically kept up by dishonourable money,
apart from her objection to its perpetually festive
atmosphere of solo-whist supper-parties — he would
sneer at her high and mighty airs in casting out
the furniture. " Oh, we're very grand now, we
keep a servant; we have cut our father off with a
shilling."
She wished her mother would not go to see Laza-
rus, but she felt she had not the right to interfere
with these visits, though Mrs. Brill returned from
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 327
them, fretful and restive. Evidently Lazarus must
be still insinuating reconciliation.
" Lazarus worries you, mother, I feel sure," she
ventured to say once.
" Oh, no, he is a good son. He wants me to live
with him."
" What ! On her money ! "
" It isn't her money — your father made it on the
Stock Exchange."
" Who told you so ? "
" Didn't you hear Lazarus say so yourself ? "
Then a horrible suspicion came to Salvina. "He
doesn't set father at you when you go there ? " she
cried.
Mrs. Brill flushed furiously. " I'd like to see
him try it on," she murmured.
Salvina stooped to kiss her. " But he tells you
tales of father's riches, I suppose."
" Who wants his riches ? If he offered me my
own horse and carriage, I wouldn't be seen with
him after the disgrace he's put upon me."
" I wish, mother, Lazarus had inherited your
sense of honour."
Mrs. Brill was pleased. "There isn't a woman
in the world with more pride ! Your father made
a mistake when he began with me ! "
328 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
XIII
A horse and carriage did come, one flamboyant
afternoon, but it was the Samuelsons', and brought
the long-absent Kitty. And Kitty as usual brought
a present. This time it was a bracelet, and Mrs. Brill
clasped and unclasped it ecstatically, feeling that she
had at least one daughter who loved her and did not
domineer. Salvina was at school, and Mrs. Brill
took Kitty all over the house, enjoying her approval,
and accepting all the praise for the lighter and more
artistic furniture. She told her of the episode of the
return of the old furniture — "And didn't have the
decency to put new castors on the sofa she had
sprawled on ! "
Kitty's laughter was as loud and ringing as Sal-
vina had anticipated ; Mrs. Brill coloured under it, as
though she were found food for laughter. " What a
ridiculous person he is ! " Kitty added hastily.
"Yes," said Mrs. Brill with eager pride and relief.
" He thought he could coax me back like a dog with
a bit of sugar."
" It would be too funny to live with him again."
And Kitty's eyes danced.
" Do you think so ? " said Mrs. Brill anxiously.
And under the sunshine of her daughter's approval
she confided to her that he had really turned up
twice at Lazarus's, beautifully costumed, with dia-
monds on his fingers and a white flower in his
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 329
button-hole, but that she had repulsed him as she
would repulse a drunken heathen. He had put his
arms round her, but she had shaken him off as one
shakes off a black beetle.
Kitty turned away and stuffed her handkerchief
into her mouth. She knew there was a tragic side,
but the comic aspect affected her more.
" Then you think I was right ? " Mrs. Brill
wound up.
"Of course," Kitty said soothingly. "What do
you want of him ? "
" But don't tell. Salvina, or she'd eat my head off.''
And then, the eager upleaping fountain of her
mother's egoistic babblings beginning at last to
trickle thinly, Kitty found a breathing-space in which
to inform her of the great news that throbbed in her
own breast.
" Lily Samuelson's dead ! Mrs. Rosenstein, you
know!"
" Oh, my God ! " ejaculated Mrs. Brill, trembling
like a leaf. Nothing upset her more than to find
that persons within her ken could actually die.
" Yes, we had a cable from the Cape yester-
day."
"Hear, O Israel! Let me see — yes, she must
have died in child-birth."
"She did — the house is all in hysterics. I couldn't
stand it any longer. I ordered the carriage and came
here."
330 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" My poor Kitty ! That Lily was too old to have
a baby. And now he will marry Mabel."
"Oh, no, mother."
" Oh, yes, he will. Mabel will jump at him, you'll
see."
"But it isn't legal — you can't marry your deceased
wife's sister."
"I know you can't in England — what foolishness!
But they'll go to Holland to be married."
" Don't be so absurd, mother."
"Absurd!" Mrs. Brill glared. "You mark my
words. They'll be in Holland before the year's
out, like Hyam Emanuel's eldest brother-in-law and
the red-haired sister of Samuel, the pawnbroker."
"Well, I don't care if they are," said Kitty, yawning.
" Don't care ! Why, you'll lose your place. They
kept you on for Mabel, but now — "
Kitty cut her short. " Don't worry, mother. I'll
be all right. He's not married Mabel yet."
This reminder seemed to come to Mrs. Brill like
a revelation, so fast had her imagination worked.
She calmed down and Kitty took the opportunity to
seek to escape. " Tell Salvina the news," she said.
" She'll be specially interested in it. In fact, judging
by the last time, she'll be more excited than I am,"
and she smiled somewhat mysteriously. " Tell her
I'm sorry I missed her — I was hoping to find her
having a holiday, but apparently I haven't been
lucky enough to strike some Jewish fast."
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 331
But partly because Mrs. Brill was enraptured by
her beautiful daughter, partly to keep the pompous
equipage outside her door as long as possible, she
detained Kitty so unconscionably that Salvina arrived
from school. Kitty flew to embrace her as usual,
but arrested herself, shocked.
"Why, Sally!" she cried. "You look like a
ghost! What's the matter?"
"Nothing," said Salvina with a wan smile. "Just
the excitement of seeing you, I suppose."
Kitty performed the postponed embrace but re-
mained dubious and shaken. Was it that her mind
was morbidly filled with funereal images, or was it
that her fresh eye had seen what her mother's
custom-blinded vision had missed — that there was
death in Salvina's face ?
This face of death-in-life stirred up unwonted emo-
tions in Kitty and made her refrain apprehensively
from speaking again of Lily's death ; and some days
later, when the first bustle of grief had subsided in
Bedford Square, Kitty, still haunted by that grew-
some vision, wrote Salvina a letter. •
u MY DEAR OLD SALLY, — You must really draw in your horns.
You were not looking at all well the othtr day. You are burning
the candle at both ends, I am sure. That horrid Board School
is killing you. I am going to beg a fortnight's holiday for you,
and I am going to take you to Boulogne for a week, and then,
when you are all braced up again, we can have the second week
at Paris."
832 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" MY DEAREST AND BEST OF SISTERS," [Salvina replied,]
" How shocking the news mother has told me of the death of poor
Lily ! If she did wrong she was speedily punished. But let
us hope she really loved him. I am sure that your brooding
on her sad fate and your sympathy with the family in this terri-
ble affliction has made you fancy all sorts of things about me,
just as mother is morbidly apprehensive of that horrible creature
marrying Mabel and thus robbing you of your place. But your
sweet letter did me more good than if I had really gone to Paris.
How did you know it was the dream of my life? But it cannot
be realized just yet, for it would be impossible for me to be
spared from school just now. Miss Green is away with diph-
theria, and as this is examination time, Miss Rolver has her hands
full. Besides, mother would be left alone. Don't worry about
me, darling. I always feel like this about this time of year, but
the summer holiday is not many weeks off and Ramsgate always
sets me up again.
" Your loving sister,
" SALVINA.
" P.S. Mother told me you advised her not to go to Laza-
rus's any more, and she isn't going. I am so glad, dear. These
visits have worried her, as Lazarus is so persistent. I am only
sorry I didn't think of enlisting your influence before — it is
naturally greater than mine. Good-bye, dear.
"P. P.S. I find I have actually forgotten to thank you for
your generous offer. But you know all that is in my heart, don't
you, darling ? "
All the same Kitty's alarm began to communicate
itself to Salvina, especially after repeated if transient
premonitions of fainting in her class-room. For
what would happen if she really fell ill ? She could
get sick leave of course for a time ; though that
would bring her under the eagle eye of the Board
Doctor, before which every teacher quailed. He
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 333
might brutally pronounce her unfit for service.
And how if she did break down permanently ? Or
if she died ! Her savings were practically nil ; her
salary ceased with her breath. Who would support
her mother ? Kitty of course would nobly take up
the burden, but it would be terribly hard on her,
especially when Mabel Samuelson should come to
marry. Not that she was going to die, of course;
she was too used to being sickly. Death was only
a shadow, hovering far off.
XIV
What was to be done ? An inspiration came to her
in the shape of a pamphlet. Life Assurance ! Ah,
that was it. Scottish Widows' Fund ! How pecul-
iarly apposite the title. If her mother could be guar-
anteed a couple of thousand pounds, Death would
lose its sting. Salvina carefully worked out all the
arithmetical points involved, and discovered to her
surprise that life assurance was a form of gambling.
The Company wagered her that she would live to a
certain age, and she wagered that she would not.
But after a world of trouble in filling up documents
and getting endorsers, when she went before the
Company's Doctor she was refused. The bet was
not good enough. " Heart weak," was the ruthless
indictment. "You ought not to teach," the Doctor
even told her privately, and amid all her consternation
334 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
Salvina was afraid lest by some mysterious brother-
hood he should communicate with the Board Doctor
and rob her of her situation. She began praying to
God extemporaneously, in English.- That was, for
her, an index of impotence. She was at the end of
her resources. She could see only a blank wall, and
the wall was a great gravestone on which was
chiselled : " Hie jacet, Salvina Brill, School Board
Teacher, Undergraduate of London University. Un-
loved and unhappy."
She wept over the inscription, being still romantic.
Poor mother, poor Kitty, what a blow her death would
be to them ! Even Lazarus would be sorry. And in
the thought of them she drifted away from the rare
mood of self-pity and wondered again how she could
get together enough money before she died to secure
her mother's future. But no suggestion came even
in answer to prayer. Once she thought of the Stock
Exchange, but it seemed to her vaguely wicked to
conjure with stocks and shares. She had read arti-
cles against it. Besides, what did she understand ?
True, she understood as much as her father. But
who knew whether his money really came from this
source ? She dismissed the Stock Exchange despair-
ingly.
And meanwhile Mrs. Brill continued peevish and
lachrymose, and Salvina found it more and more dif-
ficult to hide her own melancholy. One day, as she
was leaving the school-premises, Sugarman the Shad-
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 335
chan accosted her. " Do make a beginning," he
said winningly. " Only a sixteenth of a ticket. You
can't lose."
Sugarman still never thought of her even as a ref-
uge for impecunious bachelors, but with that shame-
less pertinacity which was the secret of his success,
both as British marriage-maker and continental lot-
tery agent, he had never ceased cajoling her toward
his other net. He was now destined to a success
which surprised even himself. Her scrupulous con-
scientiousness undermined by her analysis of the
Assurance System, Salvina inquired eagerly as to
the prizes, and bought three whole tickets at a quar-
ter of the price of one Assurance instalment.
Sugarman made a careful note of the numbers,
and so did Salvina. But it was unnecessary in her
case. They were printed on her brain, graven on
her heart, repeated in her prayers ; they hovered
luminous across her day-dreams, and if they dis-
tracted feverishly her dreams of the night, yet
they tinged the school-routine pleasantly and made
her mother's fretfulness endurable. They actually
improved her health, and as the May sunshine
warmed the earth, Salvina felt herself bourgeoning
afresh, and she told herself her fears were morbid.
Nevertheless there was one thing she was re-
solved to complete, in case she were truly doomed,
and that was her mother's education in reading,
so often begun, so often foiled by her mother's
336 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
pertinacious subsidence into contented ignorance.
Of what use even to assure Mrs. Brill's physical
future, if her mind were to be left a pauper, de-
pendent on others ? How, without the magic re-
source of books, could she get through the long
years of age, when decrepitude might confine her
to the chimney-corner? Already her talk groaned
with aches and pains.
Since the servant had been installed, the reading
lessons had dropped off and finally been discon-
tinued. Now that Salvina persisted in continuing,
she found that her mother's brain had retained
nothing. Mrs. Brill had to begin again at the
alphabet, and all the old routine of audacious
guessing recommenced. Again a fat cow ate in
a mug, for though Mrs. Brill had no head at all
for corrections, she had a wonderful memory for
her own mistakes, and took the whole sentence at
a confident jump. It was an old friend.
One evening, in the kitchen to which Mrs. Brill
always gravitated when the servant was away, she
paused between her misreadings to dilate on the
inconsiderateness of the servant in having this day
out, though she was paid for the full week, and
though the mistress had to stick at home and do all
the work. As Salvina seemed to be spiritless this
evening, and allowed the domestic to go unde-
fended, this topic was worn out more quickly than
usual, but the never failing subject of Mrs. Brill's
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 337 -
aches and pains provided more pretexts for dodg-
ing the hard words. And meantime in a chair
beside hers, poor Salvina, silent as to her own
aches and pains, and the faintness which was com-
ing over her, strained her attention to follow in
correction on the heels of her mother's reading;
but do what she would, she could not keep her
eyes continuously on the little primer, and when-
ever Mrs. Brill became aware that Salvina's at-
tention had relaxed, she scampered along at a
breakneck speed, taking trisyllables as unhesitat-
ingly as a hunter a three-barred gate. But every
now and again Salvina would struggle back into
concentration, and Mrs. Brill would tumble at the
first ditch.
At last, Mrs. Brill, to her content, found herself
cantering along, unimpeded, for a great stretch.
Salvina lay back in her chair, dead.
"The broken dancer only merry danger," read
Mrs. Brill, at a joyous gallop. Suddenly the knocker
beat a frantic tattoo on the street door. Up jumped
Mrs. Brill, in sheer nervousness.
Salvina lay rigid, undisturbed.
" She's fallen asleep," thought her mother, guiltily
conscious of having taken advantage of her slumbers.
" All the same, she might spare my aged bones the
trouble of dragging upstairs." But, being already
on her feet, she mounted the stairs, and opened the
door on Sugarman's beaming, breathless face.
338 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
"Your daughter — Number 75,814," he gasped.
Mrs. Brill, who knew nothing of Salvina's specula-
tions, took some seconds to catch his drift.
"What, what? " she cried, trembling.
" I have won her a hundred thousand marks —
the great prize ! "
" The great prize ! " screamed Mrs. Brill. " Sal-
vina ! Salvina ! Come up," and not waiting for her
reply, and overturning the flower-pots on the hall-
table, she flew downstairs, helter-skelter. " Salvina ! "
she shook her roughly. " Wake up ! You have won
the great prize ! "
But Salvina did not wake up, though she had won
the great prize.
XV
One Sunday afternoon nearly five months later a
nondescript series of vehicles, erratically and un-
punctually succeeding one another, drew up near the
mortuary of the Jewish cemetery, but, from the pres-
ence of women, it was obvious that something else
than a funeral was in progress. In fact, the two
four-wheelers, three hansom cabs, several dog-carts,
and one open landau suggested rather a picnic amid
the tombs. But it was only the ceremony of the set-
ting of Salvina's tombstone, which was attracting all
these relatives and well-wishers.
In the landau — which gave ample space for their
knees — sat the same quartette that had shared a
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 339
cab to Lazarus's wedding, except that Salvina was
replaced by Kitty. That ever young and beautiful
person was the only member of the family who had
the air of having fallen in the world, for despite that
Salvina's great prize was now added to Mr. Brill's
capital (he being the legal heir), he had refused to
set up a groom in addition to a carriage. A coach-
man, he insisted, was all that was necessary. It was
the same tone that he had taken about the horsehair
sofa, and it helped Mrs. Brill to feel that her husband
was unchanged, after all.
Arrived on the ground, the Brills found a gather-
ing of the Jonases, reconciled by death and riches.
Others were to arrive, and the party distributed itself
about the cemetery with an air of conscious incom-
pleteness. Old Jonas shook hands cordially with
Lazarus, and wiped away a tear from under his green
shade. A few of Salvina's fellow-teachers had obeyed
the notification of the advertisement in the Jewish
papers, and were come to pay the last tribute of re-
spect. The men wore black hat-bands, the women
crape, which on all the nearer relatives already showed
signs of wear. And among all these groups, con-
versing amiably of this or that in the pleasant Octo-
ber sunshine, the genteel stone-mason insinuated
himself, pervading the gathering. His breast was
divided between anxiety as to whether the parents
would like the tombstone, and uncertainty as to
whether they would pay on the spot
340 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Have you seen the stone ? What do you think
of it ? " he kept saying to everybody, with a deferen-
tial assumption of artistic responsibility ; though, as
it was a handsome granite stone, the bulk of the
chiselling had been done in Aberdeen, for the sake
of economy, whilst the stone was green, and his own
contribution had been merely the Hebrew lettering.
One by one, under the guidance of the artist, the
groups wandered toward the tombstone, and a spec-
tator or two admiringly opened negotiations for future
contingencies. An old lady who knew the stone-
mason's sister-in-law strove to make a bargain for her
own tombstone, quite forgetting that the money she
was saving on it would not be enjoyed by herself.
"What will you charge me?" she asked, with
grotesque coquetry. " I think you ought to do it
cheaper for me."
And in the House of the Priests the minister in
charge of the ceremonial impatiently awaited the
late comers, that he might intone the beautiful
immemorial Psalms. He had made a close bargain
with the cabman, and was anxious not to set him
grumbling over the delay; apart from his desire to
get back to his pretty wife, who was " at home "
that afternoon.
At last the genteel stone-mason found an oppor-
tunity of piercing through the throng of friends
that surrounded Mr. Brill, and of obsequiously in-
viting the generous orderer of this especially hand-
THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 341
some and profitable tombstone to inspect it. Kitty
followed in the wake of her parents. Almost at
the tomb, a corpulent man with graying hair, issu-
ing suddenly from an avenue of headstones, accosted
her. She frowned.
" You oughtn't to have come," she said.
"Since I belong to the family, Kitty," he re-
monstrated, playing nervously with his massive
watch seals.
" No, you don't," she retorted. Then, relentingly :
" I told you, Moss, that I could not give you my
formal consent till after my sister's tombstone was
set. That is the least respect I can pay her."
And she turned away from the somewhat discon-
certed Rosenstein, feeling very right-minded and
very forgiving toward Salvina for delaying by so
many years her marriage with the South African
magnate.
Meantime Mr. Brill, in his heavily draped high
hat, stood beside the pompous granite memorial,
surveying it approvingly. His wife's hand lay ten-
derly in his own. Underneath their feet lay the
wormy dust that had once palpitated with truth
and honour, that had kept the conscience of the
household.
"That bit of scroll-work," said the stone-mason
admiringly, and with an air of having thrown it in
at a loss ; " you don't often see a bit like that —
everybody's been saying so."
342 THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE
" Very fine ! " replied Mr. Brill obediently.
" I paid the synagogue bill for you — to save you
trouble," added the stone-mason, insinuatingly.
But Mr. Brill was abstractedly studying the stone,
and the mason moved off delicately. Mrs. Brill tried
to spell out a few of the words, but, as there was no
one to reprimand her, admitted her break-down.
" Read it to me, dear heart," she whispered to
Mr. Brill.
" I did read it you, my precious one," he said,
" when Kitty sent it us. It says : —
" ' SALVINA BRILL,
Whom God took suddenly,
On May 29th, 1897,
Aged twenty-five ;
Loved and lamented by all
For her perfect goodness.'
Then come the Hebrew letters."
"Poor Salvina!" sighed Mrs. Brill. "She de-
serves it, though she did spoil our lives for years."
He pressed her hand. " I can't tell you how
frightened I was of her," she went on. "She al-
most made me think I ought not to forgive you
even on the Day of Atonement. But I don't bear
her malice, and I don't grudge her what the stone
says."
"No, you mustn't," he said piously. "Besides,
everybody knows one never puts the whole truth
on tombstones."
VIII
SATAN MEKATRIG
VIII
SATAN MEKATRIG
" Suffer not the evil imagination to have dominion over us . . . .
deliver me from the destructive Satan.'1'1 — Morning Prayer.
WITHOUT, the air was hot, heavy and oppressive ;
squadrons of dark clouds had rolled up rapidly from
the rim of the horizon, and threatened each instant
to shake heaven and earth with their artillery. But
within the little synagogue of the " Congregation of
Love and Mercy," though it was crowded to suffoca-
tion, not a window was open. The worshippers,
arrayed in their Sabbath finery, were too intent on
following the quaint monotonous sing-song of the
Cantor reading the Law to have much attention left
for physical discomfort. They thought of their per-
spiring brows and their moist undergarments just
about as little as they thought of the meaning of the
Hebrew words the reader was droning. Though the
language was perfectly intelligible to them, yet their
consciousness was chiefly and agreeably occupied
with its musical accentuation, their piety being so
interwoven with these beloved and familiar material
elements as hardly to be separable therefrom. Perspi-
345
346 SATAN MEKATRIG
ration, too, had come to seem almost an ingredient of
piety on great synagogal occasions.' Frequent expe-
rience had linked the two, as the poor opera-goer
associates Patti with crushes. And the present was
a great occasion. It was only an ordinary Sabbath
afternoon service, but there was a feast of intellectual
good things to follow. The great Rav Rotchinsky
from Brody was to deliver a sermon ; and so the
swarthy, eager-eyed, curly-haired, shrewd-visaged
cobblers, tailors, cigar-makers, peddlers, and beggars,
who made up the congregation, had assembled in
their fifties to enjoy the dialectical subtleties, the
theological witticisms and the Talmudical anecdotes
which the reputation of the Galician Maggid fore-
shadowed. And not only did they come themselves ;
many brought their wives, who sat in their wigs and
earrings behind a curtain which cut them off from
the view of the men. The general ungainliness of
their figures and the unattractiveness of their low-
browed, high-cheekboned, and heavy-jawed faces
would have made this pious precaution appear some-
what superfluous to an outsider. The women, whose
section of the large room thus converted into a place
of worship was much smaller than the men's, were
even more closely packed on their narrow benches.
Little wonder, therefore, that just as a member of
the congregation was intoning from the central plat-
form the blessing which closes the reading of the
Law, a woman disturbed her neighbours by fainting.
SATAN MEKATRIG 347
She was carried out into the open air, though not
without a good deal of bustle, which invoked indig-
nant remonstrances in the Jiidisch-Deutsch jargon, of
" Hush, little women ! " from the male worshippers,
unconscious of the cause. The beadle went behind
the curtain, and, fearing new disturbances, tried to
open the window at the back of the little room, to let
in some air from the back-yard on which it abutted.
The sash was, however, too inert from a long season
of sloth to move even in its own groove, and so the
beadle elbowed his way back into the masculine de-
partment, and by much tugging at a cord effected a
small slit between a dusty skylight and the ceiling,
neglecting the grumblings of the men immediately
beneath.
Hardly had he done so, when all the heavy shad-
ows that lay in the corners of the synagogue, all the
glooms that the storm-clouds cast upon the day, and
that the grimy, cobwebbed windows multiplied, were
sent flying off by a fierce flash of lightning that bathed
in a sea of fire the dingy benches, the smeared walls,
the dingily curtained Ark, the serried rows of swarthy
faces. Almost on the heels of the lightning came
the thunder — that vast, instantaneous crash which
denotes that the electric cloud is low.
The service was momentarily interrupted ; the con-
gregation was on its feet ; and from all parts rose
the Hebrew blessing, " Blessed art thou, O Lord,
performing the work of the Creation ; " followed, as
348 SATAN MEKATRIG
the thunder followed the lightning, by the sonorous
" Blessed art thou, O Lord, whose power and might
fill the Universe." Then the congregation, led by
the great Rav Rotchinsky, to whose venerable
thought-lined face, surmounted by its black cap, all
eyes had instinctively turned, sat down again, feel-
ing safe. The blessing was intended to mean, and
meant no more than, a reverential acknowledgment
of the majesty of the Creator revealed in elemental
phenomena ; but human nature, struggling amid the
terrors and awfulness of the Universe, is always be-
low its creed, and scarce one but felt the prayer a
talisman. A moment afterward all rose again, as
Moshe Grinwitz, wrapped in his Talith, or praying-
shawl, prepared to descend from the Al Memor, or
central platform, bearing in his arms the Scroll of
the Law, which had just been reverentially wrapped
in its bandages, and devoutly covered with its em-
broidered mantle and lovingly decorated with its
ornamental bells and pointer.
Now, as Moshe Grinwitz stood on the Al Memor
with his sacred burden, another terrible flash of
lightning and appalling crash of thunder startled the
worshippers. And Moshe' s arms were nervously
agitated, and a frightful thought came into his head.
Suppose he should drop the Holy Scroll ! As this
dreadful possibility occurred to him he trembled still
more. The Sepher Torah is to the Jew at once the
most precious and the most sacred of possessions,
SATAN MEKATRIG 349
and in the eyes of the " Congregation of Love and
Mercy " their Sepher Torah was, if possible, invested
with a still higher preciousness and sanctity, because
they had only one. They were too poor to afford
luxuries ; and so this single Scroll was the very sym-
bol and seal of their brotherhood ; in it lay the very
possibility of their existence as a congregation. Not
that it would be rendered " Pasul," imperfect and
invalid, by being dropped; the fall could not erase
any of the letters so carefully written on the parch-
ment ; but the calamity would be none the less awful
and ominous. Every person present would have to
abstain for a day from all food and drink, in sign of
solemn grief. Moshe" felt that if the idea that had
flitted across his brain were to be realized, he would
never have the courage to look his pious wife in the
face after such passive profanity. The congregation,
too, which honoured him, and which now waited to
press devout kisses on the mantle of the Scroll, on
its passage to the Ark — he could not but be degraded
in its eyes by so negligent a performance of a duty
which was a coveted privilege. All these thoughts,
which were instinctively felt, rather than clearly con-
ceived, caused Moshe Grinwitz to clasp the Sacred
Scroll, which reached a little above his head, tightly
to his breast. Feeling secure from the peril of drop-
ping it, he made a step forward, but the bells jangled
weirdly to his ears, and when he came to the two steps
tvhich led down from the platform, a horrible f orebod-
350 SATAN MEKATRIG
ing overcame him that he would stumble and fall in
the descent. He stepped down one of the steps with
morbid care, but lo ! the feeling that no power on
earth could prevent his falling gained tenfold in in-
tensity. An indefinable presentiment of evil was
upon him ; the air was charged with some awful and
maleficent influence, of which the convulsion of na-
ture seemed a fit harbinger. And now his sensations
became more horrible. The conviction of the im-
pending catastrophe changed into a desire to take
an active part in it, to have it done with and over.
His arms itched to loose their hold of the Sepher
Torah. Oh ! if he could only dash the thing to the
ground, nay, stamp upon it, uttering fearful blas-
phemies, and shake off this dark cloud that seemed
to 'close round and suffocate him. A last shred of
will, of sanity, wrestled with his wild wishes. The
perspiration poured in streams down his forehead.
It was but a moment since he had taken the Holy
Scroll into his arms ; but it seemed ages ago.
His foot hovered between the first and second
step, when a strange thing happened. Straight
through the narrow slit opened in the skylight came
a swift white arrow of flame, so dazzling that the
awed worshippers closed their eyes ; then a long suc-
cession of terrific peals shook the room as with de-
moniac laughter, and when the congregants came to
their senses and opened their eyes they saw Moshe"
Grinwitz sitting dazed upon the steps of the A I
SATAN MEKATRIG 351
Memor, his hands tightly grasping the ends of his
praying-shawl, while the Sepher Torah lay in the
dust of the floor.
For a moment the shock was such that no one
could speak or move. There was an awful, breath-
less silence, broken only by the mad patter of the
rain on the roof and the windows. The floodgates
of heaven were opened at last, and through the fatal
slit a very cascade of water seemed to descend. Au-
tomatically the beadle rushed to the cord and pulled
the window to. His action broke the spell, and a
dozen men, their swarthy faces darker with concern,
rushed to raise up the prostrate Scroll, while a hub-
bub of broken ejaculations rose from every side.
But ere a hand could reach it, Moshe Grinwitz
had darted forward and seized the precious object
" No, no," he cried, in the jargon which was the
common language of all present. " What do you
want ? The mitzvah (good deed) is mine. I alone
must carry it." He shouldered it anew.
" Kiss it, at least," cried the great Rav Rotchinsky
in a hoarse, shocked whisper.
" Kiss it ? " cried Moshe Grinwitz, with a sneering
laugh. " What ! with my wife in synagogue ! Isn't
it enough that I embrace it ? " Then, without giving
his hearers time to grasp the profanity of his words,
he went on : " Ah, now I can carry thee easily. I
can hold thee, and yet breathe freely. See ! " And
he held out the Scroll lengthwise, showing the gilded
352 SATAN MEKATRIG
metal chain and the pointer and the bells contorted
by the lightning. " I didn't hurt thee ; God hurt
thee," he said, addressing the Scroll. With a quick
jerk of the hand he drew off the mantle and showed
the parchment blackened and disfigured.
A groan burst from some ; others looked on in
dazed silence. The pecuniary loss, added to the
manifestation of Divine wrath, overwhelmed them.
"Thou hast no soul now to struggle out of my
hands," went on Moshe Grinwitz contemptuously.
" Look ! " he added suddenly : " The lightning has
gone back to hell again ! " The men nearest him
shuddered, and gazed down at the point on the floor
toward which he was inclining the extremity of the
Scroll. The wood was charred, and a small hole re-
vealed the path the electric current had taken. As
they looked in awestruck silence, a loud wailing burst
forth from behind the curtain. The ill-omened news
of the destruction of the Sepher Torah had reached
the women, and their Oriental natures found relief in
profuse lamentation. " Smell ! smell ! " cried Moshe
Grinwitz, sniffing the sulphurous air with open de-
light.
" Woe ! woe ! " wailed the women. " Woe has
befallen us!"
" Be silent, all ! " thundered the Maggid, suddenly
recovering himself. " Be silent, women ! Listen to
my words. This is the vengeance of Heaven for the
wickedness ye have committed in England. Since
SATAN MEKATRIG 353
ye left your native country ye have forgotten your
Judaism. There are men in this synagogue that
have shaved the corners of their beard ; there are
women who have not separated the Sabbath dough.
Hear ye ! To-morrow shall be a fast day for you all.
And you, Moshe Grinwitz, bench gomel — thank the
Holy One, blessed be He, for saving your life."
"Not I," said Moshe Grinwitz. "You talk non-
sense. If the Holy One, blessed be He, saved my
life, it was He that threatened it. My life was in
no danger if He hadn't interfered."
To hear blasphemies like this from the hitherto
respectable and devout Moshe Grinwitz overwhelmed
his hearers. But only for a moment. From a hun-
dred throats there rose the angry cry, " Epikouros !
Epikouros ! " And mingled with this accusation of
graceless scepticism there swelled a gathering tumult
of " His is the sin ! Cast him out ! He is the
Jonah ! He is the sinner ! " The congregants had
all risen long ago and menacing faces glared behind
menacing faces. Some of more heady temperament
were starting from their places. " Moshe Grinwitz,"
cried the great Rav, his voice dominating the din,
" are you mad ? "
" Now for the first time am I sane," replied the
man, his brow dark with defiance, his tall but usually
stooping frame rigid, his narrow chest dilated, his
head thrown back so that the somewhat rusty high
hat he wore sloped backward half off his skull. It
354 SA TAN MEKA TRIG
was always a strange, arrestive face, was Mosh6
Grimvitz's, with its sallow skin, its melancholy dark
eyes, its aquiline nose, its hanging side-curls, and its
full, fleshy mouth embowered in a forest of black
beard and mustache ; and now there was an un-
canny light about it which made it almost weird.
" Now I see that the Socialists and Atheists are right,
and that we trouble ourselves and tear out our very
gall to read a ToraJi which the Overseer himself, if
there is one, scornfully shrivels up and casts beneath
our feet. Know ye what, brethren ? Let us all go
to the Socialist Club and smoke our cigarettes.
Otherwise are you mad ! " As he uttered these im-
pious words, another flash of flame lit up the crowded
dusk with unearthly light ; the building seemed to
rock and crash ; the fingers of the storm beat heavily
upon the windows. From the women's compartment
came low wails of fear : " Lord, have mercy ! For-
give us for our sins ! It is the end of the world ! "
But from the men's benches there arose an inco-
herent cry like the growl of a tiger, and from all sides
excited figures precipitated themselves upon the
blasphemer. But Moshe" Grinwitz laughed a wild,
maniacal laugh, and whirled the sacred Scroll round
and dashed the first comers against one another. But
a muscular Lithuanian seized the extremity of the
Scroll, and others hung on, and between them they
wrested it from his grasp. Still he fought furiously,
as if endowed with sinews of steel, and his irritated
SATAN MEKATRIG 355
opponents, their faces bleeding and swollen, closed
round him, forgetting that their object was but to
expel him, and bent on doing him a mischief. An-
other moment and it would have fared ill with the
man, when a voice, whose tones startled all but Moshe"
Grinwitz, though they were spoken close to his ear,
hissed in Yiddish : " Well, if this is the way the
members of the Congregation of Love and Mercy
spend their Sabbath, methinks they had done as well
to smoke cigarettes at the Socialist Club. What say
ye, brethren ? " These words, pregnant and deserved
enough in themselves, were underlined by an accent
of indescribable mockery, not bitter, but as gloating
over the enjoyment of their folly. Involuntarily all
turned their eyes to the speaker.
Who was he ? Where did he spring from, this
black-coated, fur-capped, red-haired hunchback with
the gigantic marble brow, the cold, keen, steely eyes
that drew and enthralled the gazer, the handsome
clean-shaven lips contorted with a sneer ? None re-
membered seeing him enter — none had seen him
sitting at their side, or near them. He was not of
their congregation, nor of their brotherhood, nor of
any of their crafts. Yet as they looked at him the
exclamations died away on their lips, their menacing
hands fell to their sides, and a wave of vague, uneasy
remembrance passed over all the men in the syna-
gogue. There was not one that did not seem to
know him ; there was not one who could have told
356 SATAN MEKATRIG
who he was, or when or where he had seen him
before. Even the great Rav Rotchinsky, who had
set foot on English soil but a fortnight ago, felt a
stir of shadowy recollection within him ; and his
corrugated brow wrinkled itself still more in the
search after definiteness. A deep and sudden silence
possessed the synagogue ; the very sobs of the un-
seeing women were checked. Only the sough of the
storm, the ceaseless plash of the torrent, went on as
before. Without, the busy life of London pulsed,
unchecked by the tempest ; within, the little syna-
gogue was given over to mystery and nameless awe.
The sneering hunchback took the Holy Scroll from
the nerveless hands of the Lithuanian, and waved
it as in derision. " Blasted ! harmless ! " he cried.
" The great Name itself mocked by the elements !
So this is what ye toil and sweat for — to store up
gold that His words may be inscribed finely on choice
parchment ; and then this is how He laughs at your
toil and your self-sacrifice. Listen to Him no more ;
give not up the seventh day to idleness when your
Lord worketh His lightnings thereon. Blind your-
selves no longer over old-fashioned pages, dusty and
dreary. Rise up against Him and His law, for He
is moved with mirth at your mummeries. He and
His angels laugh at you — Heaven is merry with
your folly. What hath He done for His chosen
people for their centuries of anguish and martyr-
dom ? It is for His plaything that He hath chosen
SATAN ME K A TRIG 357
you. He hath given you over into the hand of the
spoiler ; ye are a byword among nations ; the fol-
lowers of the victorious Christ spit in your faces.
Here in England your lot is least hard ; but even
here ye eat your scanty bread with sorrow and
travail. Sleep may rarely visit your eyes; your
homes are noisome styes ; your children perish
around you; ye go down in sorrow to the grave.
Rouse yourselves, and be free men. Waste your
lives neither for God nor man. Or, if you will wor-
ship, worship the Christ, whose ministers will pour
gold upon you. Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-
morrow ye die."
A charmed silence still hung over his auditors.
Their resentment, their horror, was dead ; a waft of
fiery air seemed to blow over their souls, an intoxi-
cating flush of evil thoughts held riot in their hearts.
They felt their whole spirit move under the sway of
the daring speaker, who now seemed to them merely
to put into words thoughts long suppressed in their
own hearts, but now rising into active consciousness.
Yes, they had been fools : they would free them-
selves, and quaff the wine of life before the Angel of
Death, Azrael, spilled the goblet. Moshe Grinwitz's
melancholy eyes blazed with sympathetic ardour.
" Hush, miserable blasphemer ! " faltered the great
Rav Rotchinsky, who alone could find his tongue.
"The guardian of Israel neither slumbereth nor
sleepeth." The hunchback wheeled round and cast
358 SATAN MEKATRIG
a chilling glance at the venerable man. Then, smil-
ing, " The maidens of England are beautiful," he
said. "They are even fairer than the women of
Brody."
The great .Rav turned pale, but his eyes shone.
He struck out feebly with his arms, as though beat-
ing back some tempting vision.
" You and I have spoken together before, Rabbi,"
said the hunchback. " We shall speak again — about
women, wine, and other things. Your beard is long
and white, but many days of sunshine are still before
you, and the darkness of the grave is afar."
The rabbi tried to mutter a prayer, but his lips
only beat tremulously together.
" Profane mocker," he muttered at length, " go to
thy work and thy wine and thy pleasure, if thou
wouldst desecrate the sacred Sabbath-day ; but tempt
not others to sin with thee. Begone ; and may
the Holy One, blessed be He, blast thee with. His
lightnings."
"The Holy One blasteth only that which is holy,"
grimly rejoined the dwarfish stranger, exhibiting the
Scroll, while a low sound of applause went up from
the audience. " Said I not, ye were a sport and a
mockery unto Him ? Ye assemble in your multitude
for prayer, and the vapour of your piety but prepares
the air for the passage of His arrows. Ye adorn
His Scroll with bells and chains, and the gilded
metal but draws His lightnings."
SATAN MEKATRIG 359
He looked around the room and a cat-like gleam
of triumph stole into his wonderful eyes as he noted
the effect of his words. He paused, and again for a
moment the tense, awful silence reigned, emphasized
by the loud but decreasing patter of the rain. This
time it was broken in a strange, unexpected fashion.
" Yisgadal, veyiskadash shem£ rabbo" rang out
a clear, childish voice from the rear of the syna-
gogue. A little orphan child, who had come to
repeat the Kaddish, the Hebrew mourners' un-
questioning acknowledgment of the Supreme Good-
ness, had fallen into a sleep, overcome by the heat,
and had slept all through the storm. Awakening
now amid a universal silence, the poor little fellow
instinctively felt that the congregation was wait-
ing for him to pronounce the prayer. Alone of
the male worshippers he had neither seen the
blaspheming hunchback nor listened to his words.
The hunchback's handsome face was distorted
with a scowl ; he stamped his broad splay-foot,
but hearing no verbal interruption, the child, its
eyes piously closed, continued its prayer —
"In the ivorld which He hath created . . . ."
"The rain has ceased, brethren," huskily whis-
pered the hunchback, for his words seemed to stick
in his throat. " Come outside and I will tell you
how to enjoy this world, for world-to-come there
is none." Not a figure stirred. The child's treble
went unfalteringly on. The stranger hurried tow-
360 SATAN MEKATRIG
ard the door. Arrived there, he looked back.
Moshe Grinwitz alone followed him. He hurled
the Scroll at the child's head, but the lad just
then took the three backward steps which accom-
pany the conclusion of the prayer. The Scroll
dashed itself against the wall ; the stranger was
gone and with him Moshe Grinwitz. A great
wave of trembling passed through the length and
breadth of the synagogue ; the men drew long
breaths, as if some heavy and sulphurous vapour
had been dissipated from the atmosphere ; the
child lifted up with difficulty the battered Scroll,
kissed it and handed it to his neighbour, who de-
posited it reverently in the Ark ; a dazzling burst
of sunshine flooded the room from above, and
transmuted the floating dust into the golden shafts
of some celestial structure ; the Cantor and the
congregation continued the words of the service
at the point interrupted, as though all the strange
episode had been a dream. They did not speak
or wonder among themselves at it ; nor did the
rabbi allude to it in the marvellous exhortation
that succeeded the service, save at its close, when
he reminded them that on the morrow they must
observe a solemn fast. But ever afterward they
shunned Moshe Grinwitz as a leper ; for the sight
of him recalled his companion in blasphemy, the
atheist and socialist propagandist, who had in-
sidiously crept into their midst, after perverting
SATAN MEKATRIG 361
and crazing their fellow as a preliminary ; and the
thought of the strange hunchback set their blood
tingling and their brain surging with wild fancies
and audacious thoughts. The tidings of their mis-
fortune induced a few benevolent men to join in
purchasing a new Scroll of the Law for them, and
before the Feast of Consecration of this precious
possession was well over, the once vivid images
of that stormy and disgraceful scene were as
shadows in the minds of men not unaccustomed
to heated synagogal discussions, and not altogether
strangers to synagogal affrays.
" She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life."
— Prov. xxxi. 12.
As Moshe Grinwitz followed his new-found friend
down the narrow windings that led to his own home,
his whole being surrendered itself to the new de-
licious freedom. The burst of sunshine that greeted
him almost as soon as he crossed the threshold of
the synagogue seemed to him to typify the new
life that was to be his. He drew up his gaunt form
to his full height, stiffened his curved shoulders,
bent by much stooping over his machine, and ad-
justed his high hat firmly on his head. It was not
a restful, placid feeling that now possessed him ;
rather a busy ferment of ideas, a stirring of nerve
currents, an accumulation of energy striving to dis-
charge itself, a mercurial flowing of the blood. The
362 SATAN MEKATRIG
weight of old life-long conceptions, nay, the burden
of old learning, of which his store had been vast,
was cast off. He did not know what he should do
with the new life that tingled in his veins ; he only
felt alive in every pore.
" Ha ! brother ! " he shouted to the hunchback,
who was hurrying on before. "These fools in the
synagogue would do better to come out and enjoy
the fine weather."
" They breathe the musty air to offer it up as a
sweet incense," responded the dwarf, slackening his
steps to allow his companion to come up with him.
Their short walk was diversified by quite a number
of incidents. A driver lashed his horse so savagely
that the animal bolted ; two children walking hand
in hand suddenly began to fight ; a foreign-looking,
richly dressed gentleman, half -drunk, staggered along.
Mosh6 felt it a shame that one wealthy man should
wear a heavy gold chain, which would support a
poor family for a month ; but ere his own tempta-
tion had gathered to a head, the poor gentleman
was felled by a sudden blow, and a respectably clad
figure vanished down an alley with the coveted spoil.
Moshe felt glad, and made no attempt to assist the
victim, and his attention was immediately attracted
by some boys, who commenced to tie a cracker to
a cat's tail. Occupied by all these observations,
Mosh6 suddenly noted with a start that they had
reached the house in which he lived. His com-
SATAN MEKATRIG 363
panion had already entered the passage, for the
door was always ajar, and Moshe had the impression
that it was very kind of his new friend to accept
his invitation to visit him. He felt very pleased,
and followed him into the passage, but no sooner
had he done so than an impalpable cloud of distrust
seemed to settle upon him. The house was a tall,
old-fashioned and grimy structure, which had been
fine, and even stately, a century before, but which
now sheltered a dozen families, mainly Jewish.
Moshe Grinwitz's one room was situated at the very
top, its walls forming part of the roof. Every flight
of stairs Moshe went up, his spirit grew darker and
darker, as if absorbing the darkness that hung around
the cobwebbed, massive balustrades, upon which no
direct ray of sunlight ever fell ; and by the time he
had reached the dusky landing outside his own door
the vague uneasiness had changed into a horrible
definite conception ; a memory had come back upon
him which set his heart thumping guiltily and anx-
iously in his bosom. His wife ! His pure, virtuous,
God-fearing wife ! How was he to make her under-
stand ? But immediately a thought came, by which
the burden of shame and anxiety was half lifted.
His wife was not at home ; she would still be in the
Synagogue of Love and Mercy, where, mercifully
blinded by the curtain, she, perhaps, was still igno-
rant of the part he had played. He turned suddenly
to his companion, and caught the vanishing traces
364 SATAN MEKATRIG
of an ugly scowl wrinkling the high white forehead
under the fur cap. The hunchback's hair burnt
like fire on the background of the gloom; his eyes
flashed lightning.
" Probably my wife is in the synagogue," said
Moshe\ " If so, she has the key, and we can't get
in."
"The key matters little," hissed the hunchback.
" But you must first tear down this thing."
Mosh6's eyes followed in wonder the direction of
his companion's long, white forefinger, and rested on
the Meztizah, where, in a tin case,' the holy verses
and the Name hung upon the door-post.
" Tear it down ? " repeated Moshe.
" Tear it down ! " replied the hunchback. " Never
will I enter a home where this superstitious gew-gaw
is allowed to decorate the door."
Mosh6 hesitated ; the thought of what his wife
would say, again welled up strongly within him ; all
his new impious daring seemed to be melting away.
But a mocking glance from the cruel eyes thrilled
through him. He put his hand on the Mezuzah,
then the unbroken habit of years asserted its sway,
and he removed the finger which had lain on the
Name and kissed it. Instantly another semi-trans-
formation of his thoughts took place ; he longed to
take the hunchback by the throat. But it was an
impotent longing, for when a low hiss of intense
scorn and wrath was breathed from the clenched
SATAN MEKATRIG 365
lips of his companion, he made a violent tug at the
firmly fastened Mezuzah. It was half-loosed from
the woodwork when, from behind the door, there
issued in clear, womanly tones the solemn Hebrew
words : —
" Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council
of the ungodly, nor standeth in the ivay of sinners, nor
sitteth in the seat of the scornful."
It was Rebecca Grinwitz commencing the Book of
Psalms, which she read through every Sabbath
afternoon.
A violent shudder agitated Moshe Grinwitz's
frame ; he paused with his hand on the Mezuzah,
struggled with himself awhile, then kissed his finger
again, and, turning to defy the scorn of his com-
panion, saw that he had slipped noiselessly down-
stairs. A sob of intense relief burst from Moshe"'s
lips.
" Rivkoly, Rivkoly ! " he cried hysterically, beating
at the door; and in another moment he was folded
in the quiet haven of his wife's arms.
" Who told thee it was I ? " said Rebecca, after a
moment of delicious happiness for both. " I told
them not to alarm thee, nor to spoil thy enjoyment
of the sermon, because I knew thou wouldst be un-
easy and be wanting to leave the synagogue if thou
knewest I had fainted."
" No one told me thou hadst fainted ! " Moshe"
exclaimed, instantly forgetting his own perturbation.
366 SATAN MEKATRIG
"And yet thou didst guess it!" said Rebecca, a
happy little smile dimpling her pale cheek, "and
came away after me." Then, her face clouding,
"The Satan Mekatrig has tempted us both away
from synagogue," she said, " and even when I com-
mence to say Tehillim (Psalms) at home, he inter-
rupts me by sending me my darling husband."
Moshe" kissed her in acknowledgment of the com-
plimentary termination of a sentence begun with
unquestionable gloom. " But what made my Riv-
koly faint ? " he asked, glad, on reflection, that his
wife's misconception obviated the necessity of ex-
planations. " They ought to have opened the win-
dow at the back of the women's room."
Rebecca shuddered. " God forbid ! " she cried.
"It wasn't the heat — it was that." Her eyes stared
a moment at some unseen vision.
"What?" cried Mosh6, catching the contagion of
horror.
" He would have come in," she said.
" Who would have come in ? " he gasped.
" The Satan Mekatrig" replied his wife. " He
was outside, and he glared at me as if I prevented
his coming in."
A nervous silence followed. Mosh^'s heart beat
painfully. Then he laughed with ghastly merriment.
" Thou didst fall asleep from the heat," he said, " and
hadst an evil dream."
" No, no," protested his wife earnestly. "As sure
SATAN MEKATRIG 367
as I stand here, no ! I was looking into my CJiumosh
(Pentateuch), following the reading of the Torah, and
all at once I felt something plucking my eyes off my
book and turning my head to look through the win-
dow immediately behind me. I wondered what
Satan Mekatrig was distracting my thoughts from
the service. For a long -time I resisted, but when
the reading ceased for a moment the temptation
overcame me and I turned and saw him."
"How looked he?" Moshe" asked in a whisper
that strove in vain not to be one.
" Do not ask me," Rebecca replied, with another
shudder. "A little crooked demon with red hair,
and a fur cap, and a white forehead, and baleful
eyes, and a cock's talons for toes."
Again Moshe laughed, a strange, hollow laugh.
" Little fool ! " he said, " I krj^w the man. He is
only a brother-Jew — a poor cutter or cigar-maker
who laughs at Yiddishkeit (Judaism), because he has
no wife like mine to show him the heavenly light.
Why, didst thou not see him afterward ? But no,
thou must have been gone by the time he came
inside."
"What I saw was no man," returned Rebecca,
looking at him sternly. " No earthly being could
have stopped my heart with his glances. It was the
Satan Mekatrig himself, who goeth to and fro on
the earth, and walketh up and down in it. I must
have been having wicked thoughts indeed this Sab-
368 SATAN MEKATRIG
bath, thinking of my new dress, for my Sabbath
Angel to have deserted me, and to let the Disturber
and the Tempter assail me unchecked." The poor,
conscience-stricken woman burst into tears.
" My Rivkoly have wicked thoughts ! " said Moshe
incredulously, as he smoothed her cheek. " If my
Rivkoly puts on a new dress in honour of the Sab-
bath, is not the dear God pleased ? Why, where is
thy new dress ? "
" I have changed it for an old one," she sobbed.
" I do not want to see the demon again."
" The Satan Mekatrig has no real existence, I tell
thee," said Moshe, irritated. " He only means our
own inward thoughts, that distract us in the perform-
ance of the precepts ; our own inward temptations to
go astray after our eyes and after our hearts."
" Moshe ! " Rebecca exclaimed in a shocked tone,
" have I married an Epikouros after all ? My father,
the Rav, peace be unto him, always said thou hadst
the makings of one — that thou didst ask too many
questions."
" Well, whether there is a Satan or not," retorted
her husband, " thou couldst not have seen him ; for
the person thou describest is the man I tell thee
of."
"And thou keepest company with such a man,"
she answered ; " a man who scoffs at Yiddishkeit !
May the Holy One, blessed be He, forgive thee!
Now I know why we have no children, no son to say
SATAN MEKATRIG 369
Kaddish after us." And Rebecca wept bitterly -
for the children she did not possess.
Their common cause of grief coming thus unex-
pectedly into their consciousness softened them
toward one another and dispelled the gathering irri-
tation. Both had a melancholy vision of themselves
stretched out stiff and stark in their shrouds, with no
filial KaddisJi breaking in upon and gladdening their
ears. O if their souls should be doomed to Purga-
tory, with no son's prayers to release them ! Very
soon they were sitting hand in hand, reading to-
gether the interrupted Psalms.
And a deep peace fell upon Moshe Grinwitz. So
the immortal allegorist, John Bunyan, must have felt
when the mad longing to utter blasphemies and ob-
scenities from the pulpit was stifled ; and when he
felt his soul once more in harmony with the Spirit of
Good. So feel all men who have wrestled with a
Being in the darkness and prevailed.
They were a curious contrast — the tall, sallow,
stooping, black-bearded man, and the small, keen-
eyed, plump, pleasant-looking, if not pretty woman,
in her dark wig and striped cotton dress, and as
they sat, steadily going through the whole collection
of Psalms to a strange, melancholy tune, fraught with
a haunting and indescribable pathos, the shadows of
twilight gathered unnoticed about the attic, which
was their all in all of home. The iron bed, the
wooden chairs, the gilt-framed Mizrach began to lose
370 SATAN MEKATRIG
their outlines in the dimness. The Psalms were fin-
ished at last, and then the husband and wife sat, still
hand in hand, talking of their plans for the coming
week. For once neither spoke of going to evening
service at the Synagogue of Love and Mercy, and
when a silver ray of moonlight lay broad across the
counterpane, and Rebecca Grinwitz, peering into the
quiet sky that overhung the turbid alley, announced
that three stars were visible, the devout couple turned
their faces to the east and sang the hymns that usher
out the Sabbath.
And when the evening prayer was over Rebecca
produced from the cupboard the plainly cut goblet of
raisin wine, and the metal wine-cup, the green
twisted waxlight, and the spice-box, wherewith to
perform the beautiful symbolical ceremony of the
Havdalah, welcoming in the days of work, the six
long days of dreary drudgery, with cheerful resigna-
tion to the will of the Maker of all things — of the
Sabbath and the Day of Work, the Light and the
Shadow, the Good and the Evil, blent into one divine
harmony by His inscrutable Wisdom and Love.
Moshe filled the cup with raisin wine, and, holding
it with his right hand, chanted a short majestic
Hebrew poem, whereof the burden was : —
" Lo ! God is my salvation ; I will trust, and I will
not be afraid. Be with us light and joy, gladness
and honour." Then blessing the King of the Uni-
verse, who had created the fruit of the Vine, he
SATAN MEKATRIG 371
placed the cup on the table and took up the spices,
uttering a blessing over them as he did so. Then
having smelled the spice-box, he passed it on to his
wife and spread out his hands toward the light of
the spiral wax taper, reciting solemnly : " Blessed be
Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who
Greatest the Light of the Fire." And then looking
down at the Shade made by his bent fingers, he took
up the wine-cup again, and chanted, with especial
fervour, and with a renewed sense of the sanctities
and sweet tranquillities of religion: "Blessed be
Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who
makest a distinction between the Holy and the non-
Holy, between Light and Darkness."
u As for that night, let darkness seize upon it." — Job iii. 6.
It was Kol Nidri night, the commencement of the
great White Fast, the Day of Atonement. Through-
out the Jewish quarter there was an air of subdued
excitement. The synagogues had just emptied them-
selves and everywhere men and women, yet under
the solemn shadow of passionate prayer, were meet-
ing and exchanging the wish that they might weather
the fast safely. The night was dark and starless, as
if Nature partook of the universal motirnfulness.
Solitary, thoug h amidst a crowd, a slight, painfully
thin woman shuffled wearily along, her feet clad in
the slippers which befitted the occasion, her head
372 SATAN MEKATRIG
bent, her worn cheek furrowed with still-falling tears.
They were not the last dribblets of an exhausted
emotion, not the meaningless, watery expression of
over-excited sensibility. They were real, salt, bitter
tears born of an intense sorrow. The long, harassing
service, with its untiring demands upon the most ex-
alted and the most poignant emotions, would have
been a blessing if it had dulled her capacity for an-
guish. But it had not. Poor Rebecca Grinwitz was
still thinking of her husband.
It was of him she thought, even when the minis-
ters, in their long white cerements, were pouring forth
their souls in passionate vocalization, now rising to a
wail, now breaking to a sob, now sinking to a dread
whisper ; it was of him she thought when the weep-
ing worshippers, covered from head to foot in their
praying-shawls, rocked to and fro in a frenzy of grief,
and battered the gates of Heaven with fiery lyrics ;
it was of him she thought when she beat her breast
with her clenched fist as she made the confession of
sin and clamoured for forgiveness. Sins enough she
knew she had — but his sin ! Ah ! God, his sin !
For Moshe had gone from bad to worse. He re-
fused to reenter the synagogue where he had been so
roughly handled. His speech became more and
more profane. He said no more prayers; wore no
more phylacteries. Her peaceful hDme-life wrecked,
her reliance on her husband gone, the poor wife clung
to him, still hoping on. At times she did not believe
SATAN MEKATRIG 373
him sane. Gradually rumours of his mad behaviour
on the Sabbath on which she had fainted reached her
ears, and remembering that his strangeness had be-
gun from the Sunday morning following that delicious
afternoon of common Psalm-saying, she was often in-
clined to put it all down to mental aberration. But
then his talk — so clever, if so blasphemous ; bristling
with little pointed epigrams and maxims such as she
had never before heard from him or any one else.
He was full of new ideas, too, on politics and the social
system and other unpractical topics, picturing endless
potentialities of wealth and happiness for the labourer.
Meantime his wages had fallen by a third, owing
to the loss of his former place, his master having been
the president of the Congregation of Love and Mercy.
What wonder, therefore, if Mosh6 Grinwitz intruded
upon all his wife's thoughts — devotional or worldly ?
In a very real sense he had become her Satan Me katrig.
Up till to-night she had gone on hoping. For
when the great White Fast comes round, a mighty
wave as of some subtle magnetism passes through the
world of Jews. Men and women who have not
obeyed one precept of Judaism for a whole year sud-
denly awake to a remembrance of the faith in which
they were born, and hasten to fast and pray, and abase
themselves before the Throne of Mercy. The long-
drawn, tremulous, stirring notes of the trumpet that
ushers in the New Year, seem to rally and gather to-
gether the dispersed of Israel from every region of
374 SATAN MEKATRIG
the underworld of unfaith and to mass them beneath
the cope of heaven. And to-night surely the newly
rooted nightshade of doubt would wither away in her
husband's bosom. Surely this one link still held him to
the religion of his fathers ; and this one link would
redeem him and yet save his soul from the everlast-
ing tortures of the damned. But this last hope had
been doomed to disappointment. Utterly unmoved
by all the olden sanctities of the Days of Judgment
that initiate the New Year, the miserable man showed
no signs of remorse when the more awful terrors of
the Day of Atonement drew near — the last day of
grace for the sinner, the day on which the Divine
Sentence is sealed irrevocably. And so the wretched
woman had gone to the synagogue alone.
Reaching home, she toiled up the black staircase
and turned the handle of the door. As she threw
open the door she uttered a cry. She saw nothing
before her but a gigantic shadow, nickering gro-
tesquely on the sloping walls and the slip of ceiling.
It must be her own shadow, for other living occupant
of the room she could see none. Where was her
husband ? Whither had he gone ? Why had he
recklessly left the door unlocked ?
She looked toward the table gleaming weirdly
with its white tablecloth ; the tall wax Yom Kippur
Candle, specially lit on the eve of the solemn fast
and intended to burn far on into the next day, had
all but guttered away, and the flame was quivering
SATAN MEKATRIG 375
unsteadily under the influence of a draught coming
from the carelessly opened window. Rebecca shiv-
ered from head to foot; a dread presentiment of
evil shook her soul. For years the Candle had
burnt steadily, and her life also had been steady
and undisturbed. Alas ! it needed not the omen
of the Yom Kippur Candle to presage woe.
" May the dear God have mercy on me ! " she
exclaimed, bursting into fresh tears. Hardly had
she uttered the words when a monstrous black cat,
with baleful green eyes, dashed from under the table,
sprang upon the window-sill, and disappeared into
the darkness, uttering a melancholy howl. Almost
frantic with terror, the poor woman dragged her-
self to the window and closed it with a bang, but
ere the sash had touched the sill, something narrow
and white had flashed from the room through the
gap, and the reverberations made in the silent garret
by the shock of the violently closed window were
prolonged in mocking laughter.
" Well thrown, Rav Moshe ! " said a grating voice.
" Now that you have at last conquered your rever-
ence for a bit of tin and a morsel of parchment, I
will honour your mansion with my presence."
Instantly Rebecca felt a wild longing to join in
the merriment and to laugh away her fears ; but,
muttering a potent talismanic verse, she turned and
faced her husband and his guest. Instinct had
not deceived her — the new-comer was the hunch-
376 SATAN MEKAl^RIG
back of that fatal Sabbath. This time she did not
faint.
" A strange hour and occasion to bring a visitor,
MosheY' she said sternly, her face growing even
more rigid and white as she caught the nicotian and
alcoholic reek of the two men's breaths.
"Your good Frau is not over-polite," said the
visitor. " But it's Yom Kippur, and so I suppose
she feels she must tell the truth."
" I brought him, Rivkoly, to convince thee what
a fool thou wast to assert that thou hadst seen —
but I mustn't be impolite," he broke off, with a
coarse laugh. "There's no call for me to tell the
truth because it's Yom Kippur. Down at the Club
we celebrated the occasion by something better than
truth — a jolly spread! And our good friend here
actually stood a bottle of champagne ! Cham-
pagne, Rivkoly ! Think of it ! Real, live cham-
pagne, like that which fizzes and sparkles on the
table of the Lord Mayor. Oh, he's a jolly good
fellow ! and so said all of us, too. And yet thou
sayest he isn't a fellow at all."
A drunken leer overspread his sallow face, and
was rendered more ghastly by the flame leaping up
from the expiring candle.
" Roshah, sinner!" thundered the woman. Then
looking straight into the cruel eyes of the hunchback,
her wan face shining with the stress of a great emo-
tion, her meagre form convulsed with fury, " Avaunt,
SATAN MEKATRIG 377
Satan Mekatrig ! " she screamed. " Get thee down
from my house — get thee down. In God's name,
get thee down — to hell."
Even the brazen-faced hunchback trembled before
her passion ; but he grasped his friend's hot hand in
his long, nervous fingers, and seemed to draw cour-
age from the contact.
" If I go, I take your husband ! " he hissed, his
great eyes blazing in turn. " He will leave me no
more. Send me away, if you will."
"Yes, thou must not send my friend away like
this," hiccoughed Mosh6 Grinwitz. " Come, make
him welcome, like the good wife thou wast wont
to be."
Rebecca uttered a terrible cry, and, cowering
down on the ground, rocked herself to and fro.
The drunkard appeared moved. "Get up, Riv-
koly," he said, with a tremour in his tones. "To
see thee one would think thou wast sitting SJiivah
over my corpse." He put out his hand as if to
raise her up.
" Back ! " she screamed, writhing from his grasp.
"Touch me not; no longer am I wife of thine."
" Hear you that, man ? " said the hunchback
eagerly. "You are free. I am here as a witness.
Think of it ; you are free."
"Yes, I am free," repeated Mosh6, with a horrible,
joyous exultation on his sickly visage. The gigantic
shadow of himself that bent over him, cast by the
378 SATAN MEKATRIG
dying flame of the Yom Kippur Candle, seemed to
dance in grim triumph, his long side-curls dangling
in the spectral image like barbaric ornaments in the
ears of a savage, while the unshapely, fantastic
shadow of the hunchback seemed to nod its head
in applause. Then, as the flame leaped up in an
irregular jet, the distorted shadow of the Tempter
intertwined itself in a ghastly embrace with her own.
With frozen blood and stifled breath the tortured
woman turned away, and, as her eyes fell upon the
many-cracked looking-glass which adorned the man-
telpiece, she saw, or her overwrought fancy seemed
to see — her husband's dead face, wreathed with a
slavering serpent in the place of the phylacteries
he had ceased to wear, and surrounded by endless
perspectives of mocking marble-browed visages, with
fiery snakes for hair and live coals for eyes.
She felt her senses slipping away from her grasp,
but she struggled wildly against the heavy vapour that
seemed to choke her. " Moshe ! " she shrieked, in mad,
involuntary appeal for help, as she clutched the mantel
and closed her eyes to shut out the hideous vision.
" I am no longer thy husband," tauntingly replied
the man. " I may not touch thee."
"Hear you that, woman?" came the sardonic voice
of the hunchback. " You are free. I am here as a
witness."
" I am here as a witness," a thousand mocking
voices seemed to hiss in echoed sibilance.
SATAN MEKATRIG 379
A terrible silence followed. At last she turned her
white shrunken face, which the contrast of the jet-
black wig rendered weird and death-like, toward the
man who had been her husband, and looked long and
slowly, yearningly yet reproachfully, into his blood-
shot eyes.
Again a great wave of agitation shook the man
from head to foot.
" Don't look at me like that, Rivkoly," he almost
screamed. " I won't have it. I won't see thee.
Curse that candle ! Why does it flicker on eternally
and not blot thee from my sight?" He puffed
violently at the tenacious flame and a pall fell over
the room. But the next instant the light leaped up
higher than ever.
"Mosh6!" Rebecca shrieked in wild dismay.
" Dost thou forget it is Kol Nidrt night ? How canst
thou dare to blow out a light ? Besides, it is the Yom
Kippur Candle — it is our life and happiness for the
New Year. If you blow it out, I swear, by my soul
and the great Name, that you shall never look upon
my face again."
" It is because I do not wish to see thy face that
I will blow it out," he replied, laughing hysterically.
" No, no ! " she pleaded. " I will go away rather.
It is nearly dead of itself ; let it die."
" No ! It takes too long dying ; 'tis like thy father,
the Rav, who had the corpse-watchers so long in
attendance that one died himself," said Moshe Grin-
380 SATAN MEKATRIG
witz with horrible laughter. " I will kill it ! " And
bending down low over the broad socket of the
candlestick, so that his head loomed gigantic on the
ceiling, he silenced forever the restless tongue of
fire.
Immediately a thick blackness, as of the grave,
settled upon the chamber. Hollow echoes of the
blasphemer's laughter rang and resounded on every
side. Myriads of dreadful faces shaped themselves
out of the gloom, and mowed and gibbered at the
woman. At the window, the green, baleful eyes of
the black cat glared with phosphorescent light. A
wreath of fiery serpents twisted themselves in fiendish
contortions, shedding lurid radiance upon the cruel
marble brow they garlanded. An unspeakable Eeri-
ness, an unnameable Unholiness, floated with far-
sweeping, rustling pinions through the Darkness.
With stifling throat that strove in vain to shriek,
the woman dashed out through the well-known door,
fled wildly down the stairs, pursued at every step by
the sardonic merriment, met at every corner by the
gibbering shapes — fled on, dashing through the
heavy, ever-open street door into the fresher air of
the night — on, instinctively on, through the almost
deserted streets and alleys, where only the vile gin-
houses gleamed with life — on, without pause or rest,
till she fell exhausted upon the dusty door-step of the
Synagogue of Love and Mercy.
SATAN MEKATRIG 381
" All Israel have a portion in the world to come."'1 — Ethics of
the Fathers.
The aged keeper of the synagogue rushed out at
the noise.
"Save me! For God's sake, save me, Reb Yitz-
chok ! " cried the fallen figure. " Save me from the
Satan Mekatrig ! I have no home — no husband —
any more ! Take me in ! "
"Take you in ?" said Reb Yitzchok pityingly, for
he dimly guessed something of her story. " Where
can I take you in ? You know my wife and I are
allowed but one tiny room here."
" Take me in ! " repeated the woman. " I will pass
the night in the synagogue. I must pray for my
husband's soul, for he has no son to pray for him.
Let me come in ! Save me from the Satan Meka-
trig!"
" You would certainly meet many a Satan Mekatrig
in the streets during the night," said the old man
musingly. " But have you no friends to go to ? "
" None — none — but God ! Let me in that I may
go to Him. Give me shelter, and He will have mercy
on you when the great Tekiah sounds to-morrow
night ! "
Without another word Reb Yitzchok went into his
room, returned with the key, and threw open the
door of the women's synagogue, revealing a dazzling
flood of light from the numerous candles, big and
little, which had been left burning in their sconces.
382 SATAN MEKATRIG
The low curtain that served as a partition had been
half rolled back by devoted husbands who had come
to inquire after their wives at the end of the service,
and the synagogue looked unusually large and bright,
though it was hot and close, with lingering odours
of breaths, and snuff, and tallow, and smelling-salts.
With a sob of infinite thankfulness Rebecca
dropped upon a wooden bench.
" Would you like a blanket ? " said the old man.
" No, no, God bless you ! " she replied. " I must
watch and weep, not sleep. For the Scroll of Judg-
ment is written and the - Book of Life is all but
closed."
With a pitying sigh the old man turned and left
her alone for the night in the Synagogue of Love
and Mercy.
For a few moments Rebecca sat, prayerless, her
soul full of a strange peace. Then she found her-
self counting the chimes as they rolled out sono-
rously from a neighbouring steeple : One, Two,
Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,
Eleven, TWELVE !
******
Starting up suddenly when the last stroke ceased
to vibrate on the air, Rebecca Grinwitz found, to
her surprise, that a merciful sleep must have over-
taken her eyelids, that hours must have passed
since midnight had struck, and that the great Day
of Atonement must have dawned. Both compart-
SATAN MEKATRIG 383
ments of the synagogue were full of the restless
stir of a praying multitude. With a sense of some-
thing vaguely strange, she bent her eyes downward
on her neighbour's Machzor. The woman imme-
diately pushed the prayer-book more toward Re-
becca, with a wonderful smile of love and tenderness,
which seemed to go right through Rebecca's heart,
though she could not clearly remember ever having
seen her neighbour before. Nor, wonderingly steal-
ing a first glance around, could she help feeling that
the entire congregation was somewhat strange and
unfamiliar, though she could not quite think why or
how. The male worshippers, too, why did they all
wear the shroud-like garments, usually confined on
this solemn occasion to the ministers and a few extra-
devout personages ? And had not some transforma-
tion come over the synagogue? Was it only the
haze before her tear-worn eyes or did dim perspec-
tives of worshippers stretch away boundlessly on all
sides of the clearly seen area, which still retained the
form of the room she knew so well ?
But the curious undercurrent of undefined wonder
lasted but a moment. In another instant she was
reconciled to the scene. All was familiar and ex-
pected ; once more she was taking part in divine
service with no sorrowful thoughts of her husband
coming to distract her, her whole soul bathing in and
absorbing the Peace of God which passeth all under-
standing. Then suddenly she felt a stir of recollection
384 SATAN MEKATRIG
coming over her, and a stream of love warming her
heart, and looking up at her neighbour's face she saw
with joyous content that it was that of her mother.
The service went on, mother and daughter follow-
ing it in the book they had in common. After sev-
eral hours, during which the huge, far-spreading
congregation alternated with the Cantor in intoning
the beautiful poems of the liturgy of the day, the
white curtain with its mystic cabalistic insignia was
rolled back from the Ark of the Covenant and two
Scrolls were withdrawn therefrom. Rebecca noted
with joy that the Ark was filled with Scrolls big and
little, in rich mantles, and that those taken out were
swathed in satin beautifully embroidered, and that
the ornaments and the musically tinkling bells were
of pure gold.
Then some of the worshippers were called up in
turn to the Al Memor to be present at the reading of
a section of the Law. They were all well known to
Rebecca. First came Moses ben Amram. He
walked humbly up to the Al Memor with bowed
head, his long Talith enveloping him from crown to
foot. Rebecca saw his face well, for though it was
covered with a thick veil, it shone luminously through
its draping.
" Bless ye the Lord, who is blessed," said Moses
ben Amram, the words seeming all the sweeter from
his lips for the slight stammering with which they
were uttered.
SATAN MEKATRIG 385
" Blessed be the Lord, who is blessed to all eternity
and beyond," responded the endless congregation, in
a low murmur that seemed to be taken up and
vibrated away and away into the infinite distances
for ever and ever.
" Blessed be the Lord, who is blessed to all eternity
and beyond," echoed the melodious voice. Then, in
words that seemed to roll and fill the great gulfs of
space with a choral music of sacred joy, Moses con-
tinued, " Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, the
King of the Universe, who hath chosen us from all
peoples, and given unto us His Law. Blessed art
Thou, O Lord, who givest the Law."
After him came Aaron ben Amram, whose white
beard reached to his knees. Abraham ben Terah,
Isaac ben Abraham, and Jacob ben Isaac — all ven-
erable figures, with faces which Rebecca, felt were
radiant with infinite tenderness and compassion for
such poor helpless children as herself — were also
called up, and after the Patriarchs, Elijah the Prophet.
Lastly came a white-haired, stooping figure, whose
gait and whose every gesture told Rebecca that it
was her father. How glad she felt to see him thus
honoured ! As she listened to his quavering tones
the dusty tombstones of dead years seemed rolled
away, and all their simple joys and griefs to live
again, not quite as of yore, but transfigured by some
solemn pathos.
When the reading of the Law was at an end,
386 SA TAN MEKA TRIG
David ben Jesse, a royal-looking graybeard, held up
the Scroll to the four corners of space, and it was
rolled up by his son Solomon, the Preacher ; the
carrying of it to the Ark being given to Rabbi Akiba,
whose features wore a strange, ecstatic look, as
though ennobled by suffering. The vast multitude
rose with a great rustling, the sound whereof reached
afar, and sang a hymn of rejoicing, so that the whole
universe was filled with melody. Rebecca alone
could not sing. For the first time she missed her
husband, Moshe. Why was he not here, like all the
other friends of her life, whose beloved faces sur-
rounded her on every side and made a sweet atmos-
phere of security for her soul ? What was he doing
outside of this mighty assembly ? Why was he not
there to have the sacred duty of carrying the Scroll
entrusted to him ? She felt the tears pouring down
her cheeks. She was ready to sink to the earth with
sudden lassitude. " Mother ! dear mother ! " she
cried, " I feel so faint."
" You must have some air, my child, my Rivkoly,"
said the mother, the dearly remembered voice falling
for the first time with ineffable sweetness on Re-
becca's ears. And she put out her hand, and lo ! it
grew longer and longer, till it reached up to the sky-
light, and then suddenly the whole roof vanished and
the free air of heaven blew in like celestial balm upon
Rebecca's hot forehead. Yet she noted with wonder
that the holy candles burnt on steadily, unfluttered
SATAN MEKATRIG 387
by the refreshing breeze. And then, lo ! the starless
heavens above her opened out in indescribable Glory.
The Dark budded into ineffable Beauty ; a supernally
pure, luminous Splendour, transcendently dazzling,
filled the infinite depths of the Firmament with melo-
dious coruscations of Infinite Love made visible, and
white-winged hosts of radiant Cherubim sang " Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is
full of His Glory." And all the vast congregation
fell upon their faces and cried " Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His
Glory." And Moses ben Amram arose, and he
lifted his hands toward the Splendour and he cried,
" Lord, Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffer-
ing and full of kindness and truth. Lo, Thou sealest
the seals before the twilight. Seal Thy People, I
pray Thee, in the Book of Life, though Thou blot
me out. Forgive them, and pardon their transgres-
sions for the sake of the merits of the Patriarchs and
for the sake of the merits of the Martyrs, who have
shed their blood like water and offered their flesh to
the flames for the Sanctification of the Name. For-
give them, and blot out their transgressions."
And all the congregation said "Amen."
Then a surging wave of hope rose within Rebecca's
breast, and it lifted her to her feet and stretched out
her arms toward the Splendour. And she said :
" Lord God, forgive Thou my husband, for he is in
the hand of the Tempter. Save him from the power
388 SATAN MEKATRIG
of the Evil One by Thine outstretched arm and Thy
mighty hand. Save him and pardon him, Lord, in
Thine infinite mercy." Then a strange, dread, anx-
ious silence fell upon the vast spaces of the Firma-
ment, till from the heart of the Celestial Splendour
there fell a Word that floated through the Universe
like the sweet blended strains of all sweet instru-
ments, a Word that mingled all the harmonies of
winds and waters and mortal and angelic voices into
one divine cadence — Salachti.
And with the sweet Word of Forgiveness linger-
ing musically in her charmed ears, and the sweet
assurance at her heart that she, the poor, miserable
tailor's wife, despised and trodden under foot by the
rich and by the heathen around, could lean upon the
breast of an Almighty Father, who had prepared for
her immortal glories and raptures amid all her loved
ones in a world where He would wipe the tears from
off all eyes, Rebecca Grinwitz awoke to find the
bright morning sunshine streaming in upon her and
the fresh morning air blowing in upon her fevered
brow from the skylight which Reb Yitzchok had just
opened.
" Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler"
— Psalm xci. 3.
A shroud of newly fallen snow enveloped the dead
earth, over which the dull, murky sky looked drearily
down. Within his fireless garret, which was almost
SATAN MEKATRIG 389
empty of furniture, Moshe Grinwitz lay, wasted away
to a shadow. His beard was unkempt, his cheek-
bones were almost fleshless, his feverish eyes large
and staring, his side-curls tangled and untended.
There did not seem enough strength left in the
frame to resist a babe ; yet, when he coughed, the
whole skeleton was agitated as though with galvanic
energy.
"Will he never come back?" he murmured un-
easily.
" Fear not ; so far as lies in my power, I shall be
with you always," replied the voice of the hunchback
as he entered the room. " But, alas ! I have little
comfort to bring you. One pawnbroker after an-
other refused to advance anything on my waistcoat,
and at last I sold it right out for a few pence. See ;
here is some milk. It is warm."
Mosh£ tried to clutch the jug, but fell back, help-
less. A shade of anxiety passed over his compan-
ion's face. " Have I miscalculated ? " he muttered.
He held the jug to the sick man's lips, supporting
his head with the other. Moshe drank, then fell
back, and pressed his friend's hand gratefully.
" Poor MosheV' said the hunchback. " What a
shame I tossed into the gutter the gold my father left
me seven months ago ! How could I foresee you
would be struck down with this long sickness ? "
"No, no, don't regret it," quavered Mosh6, his white
face lighting up. "We had jolly old times, jolly old
390 SATAN MEKATRIG
times, while the money lasted. Oh, you've been a
good friend to me — a good friend. If I had never
known you, I should have passed away into nothing-
ness, without ever having known the mad joys of wine
and riot. I have had wild, voluptuous moments of rev-
elry and mirth. No power in heaven or hell can take
away the past. And then the sweet freedom of doing
as you will, thinking as you will, flying with wings un-
clogged by superstition — to you I owe it all ! And
since I have been ill you have watched over me like
— like a woman."
His words died away in a sob, and then there was
silence, except when his cough sounded strange and
hollow in the bare room. Presently he went on : —
" How unjust Rivkoly was to you ! She once said "
— here the speaker laughed a little melancholy
laugh — " that you were the Satan Me ka trig in
person."
"Poor afflicted woman! " said his friend, with pitying
scorn. " In this nineteenth century, when among
the wise the belief in the gods has died out, there
are yet fools alive who believe in the devil. But she
could only have meant it metaphorically."
The sick man shook his head. " She said the evil
influence — of course, it seemed evil to her — you
wielded over her thoughts, and I suppose mine, too,
was more than human — was supernatural."
" Oh, I don't say I'm not more strong-minded than
most people. Of course 'I am, or I should be howl-
SATAN MEKATRIG 391
ing hymns at the present moment. But why does a
soldier catch fire under the eye of his captain ?
What magnetism enables one man to bewitch a na-
tion ? Why does one friend's unspoken thought find
unuttered echo in another's ? Go to Science, study
Mesmerism, Hypnotism, Thought-Transference, and
you will learn all about Me and my influence."
" Yes, Rivkoly never had any idea of anything out-
side her prayer-book. Rivkoly — "
" Mention not her name to me," interrupted the
hunchback harshly. "A woman who deserts her
husband — "
" She swore to go if I blew out the Yom Kippur
light. And I did."
"A woman who goes out of her wits because her
husband gets into his ! " sneered the other. " Doubt-
less her superstitious fancy conjured up all sorts of
sights in the dark. Ho ! ho ! ho ! " and he laughed a
ghastly laugh. " Happily she will never come back.
She's evidently able to get along without you. Prob-
ably she has another husband more to her pious taste."
Mosh6 raised himself convulsively. " Don't say
that again ! " he screamed. " My Rivkoly ! " Then a
violent cough shook him and his white lips were red-
dened with blood.
The cold eyes of the hunchback glittered strangely
as he saw the blood. "At any rate," he said, more
gently, "she cannot break the mighty oath she sware.
She will never come back."
392 SATAN MEKATRIG
" No, she will never come back," the sick man
groaned hopelessly. " But it was cruel of me to drive
her away. Would to G — "
The hunchback hastily put his hand on the speak-
er's mouth, and tenderly wiped away the blood.
" When I am better," said Mosh6, with sudden resolu-
tion, " I will seek her out : perhaps she is starving."
" As you will. You know she can always earn her
bread and water at the cap-making. But you are your
own master. When you are rid of this sickness —
which will be soon — you shall go and seek her out
and bring her to abide with you." The words rang
sardonically through the chamber.
" How good you are ! " Moshe murmured, as he
sank back relieved.
The hunchback leaned over the bed till his gigan-
tic brow almost touched the sick man's, till his won-
derful eyes lay almost on his. "And yet you will not
let me hasten on your recovery in the way I pro-
posed to you."
" No, no," Mosh£ said, trembling all over. " What
matters if I lie here a week more or less ? "
" Lie here ! " hissed his friend. " In a week you
will lie rotting."
A wild cry broke from the blood-bespattered lips !
" I am not dying ! I am not dying ! You said just
now I should be better soon."
" So you will ; so you will. But only if we have
money. Our last farthing, our last means of raising
SATAN MEKATRIG 393
a farthing, is gone. Without proper food, without
a spark of fire, how can you hold out a week in this
bitter weather ? No, unless you would pass from the
light and the gladness of life to the gloom and the
shadow of the tomb, you must be instantly baptized."
" Shmad myself ! Never ! " said the sick man,
the very word conjuring up an intolerable loathing,
deeper than reason ; and then another violent fit of
coughing shook him.
" See how this freezing atmosphere tells on you.
You must take Christian gold, I tell you. Thus
only shall I be able to get you fire — to get you fire,"
repeated the hunchback with horrible emphasis.
"You call yourself a disbeliever. If so, what mat-
ters ? Why should you die for a miserable prej-
udice ? But you are no true infidel. So long as
you shrink from professing any religion under the
sun, you still possess a religion. Your unfaith is but
foam-drift on the deep sea of faith ; but lip-babble
while your heart is still infected with superstition.
Come, bid me fetch the priest with his crucifix and
holy water. Let us fool him to the top of his bent.
Rouse yourself; be a man and live."
" No, no, brother ! I will be a man and die."
"Fool!" hissed the hunchback. "It fits not one
who has lived for months by Christian gold to be so
nice."
" You lie ! " Moshe gasped.
"The seven months that you and I have known
894 SATAN MEKATRIG
each other, it is Christian gold that has warmed you
and fed you and rejoiced you, and that, melted down,
has flowed in your veins as wine. Whence, then,
took I the money for our riotings ? "
" From your father, you said."
"Yes, from my spiritual father," was the grim
reply. " No, having that belief, which you still lack,
in the hollowness and mockery of all save pleasure,
I became a Christian. For a time they paid me
well, but as soon as I had been put on the annual
report I had served my purpose and the supplies
fell off. I could be converted again in another town
or country, but I dare not leave you. But you are
a new man, and should I drag you into the fold they
will reward us both well. Instead of subsisting on
ary bread and milk you will fare on champagne and
turtle-soup once more."
Moshe sat up and gazed wildly one long second
at the Tempter. He looked at his own fleshless
arms, and shuddered. He felt the icy hand of Death
upon him. He knew himself a young man still.
Must he go down into the eternal darkness, and be
folded in the freezing clasp of the King of Terrors,
while the warm bosom of Life offered itself to his
embrace ? No ; give him Life, Life, Life, polluted
and stained with hypocrisy, but still Life, delicious
Life.
The steely eyes of the hunchback watched the
contest anxiously. Suddenly a change came over
SATAN MEKATRIG 395
the wildly working face — it fell back chill and rigid
on the pillow, the eyes closed. The room seemed
to fill with an impalpable, brooding Vapour, as if a
thick fog were falling outside. The watcher caught
madly at his friend's wrist and sought to detect a
pulsation. His eyes glowed with horrible exultant
relief.
"Not yet, not yet, Brother Azrael," he said
mockingly, as if addressing the impalpable Va-
pour ; " Thou who art wholly woven of Eyes, canst
Thou not see that it is not yet time to throw the
fatal pellet into his throat ? Back, back ! "
The Vapour thickened. The minutes passed.
The hunchback peered expectant at the corpse-
like face on the dingy pillow. At last the eyes
opened, but in them shone a strange, rapt ex-
pression.
" Thank God, Rivkoly ! " the dying lips muttered.
" I knew thou wouldst come."
As he spoke there was a frantic beating at the
door. The hunchback's face was convulsed.
" Hasten, hasten, Brother Azrael ! " he cried.
The Vapour lightened a little. Mosh6 Grinwitz
seemed to rally. His face glowed with eagerness.
" Open the door ! open the door ! " he cried.
"It's Rivkoly — my Rivkoly!"
The vain battering at the door grew fiercer, but
none noted it in the house. Since the shadow of
the hunchback had first fallen within that thickly
396 SATAN MEKATRIG
crowded human nest, the doves had become hawks,
the hawks vultures. All was discord and bickering.
" Lie still," said the hunchback ; " 'tis but your
fevered imagination. Drink."
He put the jug to the dying man's lips, but it
was dashed violently from his hand and shattered
into a hundred pieces.
" Give me nothing bought with Christian money ! "
gasped Moshe hoarsely, his breath rattling pain-
fully in his throat. " Never will I knowingly gain
by the denial of the Unity of God."
" Then die like a dog ! " roared the hunchback.
"Hasten, Brother Azrael!"
The Vapour folded itself thickly about the room.
The rickety door was shaken frantically, as by a
great gale.
" Mosh6 ! Mosh6 ! " shrieked a voice. " Let me
in — me — thy Rivkoly! In God's name, let me
in ! I bring thee a precious gift. Or art thou
dead, dead, dead? My God, why didst Thou not
cause me to know he was ill before ! "
" Your husband is dying," said the hunchback.
"When he is dead, you shall look upon his face.
But he may not look upon your face again. You
have sworn it."
" Devil ! " cried the fierce voice of the woman.
"I swore it on Kol Nidrt night, when I had just
asked the Almighty to absolve me from all rash
oaths. Let me in, I tell you."
SATAN MEKATRIG 397
" I will not have a sacred oath treated thus
lightly," said the hunchback savagely. " I will
keep your soul from sin."
" Cursed be thou to eternity of eternities ! " re-
plied the woman. " Pray, Moshe, pray for thy
soul. Pray, for thou art dying."
" Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord
is one," rose the sonorous Hebrew.
" Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord
is one," wailed the woman. The very Vapour
seemed to cling round and prolong the vibrations
of the sacred words. Only the hunchback was
silent. The mocking words died on his lips, and
as the woman, with one last mighty blow, dashed
in through the flying door, he seemed to glide
past her and melt into the darkness of the stair-
case.
Rivkoly heeded not his contorted, malignant vis-
age, crowned with its serpentine wreath of fiery
hair; she flew straight through the heavy Vapour,
stooped and kissed the livid mouth, read in a mo-
ment the decree of Death in the eyes, and then
put something small and warm into her husband's
fast chilling arms.
"Take it, Moshe"," she cried, "and comfort thy
soul in death. 'Tis thy child, for God has at
last sent us a son. Yom Kippur night — now six
long months ago — I had a dream that God would
forgive thee, and I was glad. But when I thought
398 SATAN MEKATRIG
to go home to thee in the evening, I learnt that
thou hadst been feasting all that dread Day of
Atonement with the Satan Mekatrig; and my heart
fell, for I knew that my dream was but the vain
longing of my breast, and that through thine own
misguided soul thou couldst never be saved from
the eternal vengeance. Then I went away, far
from here, and toiled and lived hard and lone;
and I believed not in my dream. But I prayed
and prayed for thy soul, and lo ! very soon I was
answered ; for I knew we should have a child.
And then I entreated that it should be a son, to
pray for thee, and perhaps win thee back to God,
and to say the Kaddish after thee when thou
shouldst come to die, though I knew not that thy
death was at hand ; and a few weeks back the
Almighty was gracious and merciful to me, and
I had my wish."
She ceased, her wan face radiant. The Shadow of
Death could not chill her sublime faith, her simple,
trustful hope. The husband was clasping the feebly
whimpering babe to his frozen breast, and showering
passionate kisses on its unconscious form.
" Rivkoly ! " he whispered, as the tears rolled down
his cheeks, " how pale and thin thou art grown ! O
God, my sin has been heavy ! "
" No, no," she cried, her loving hand in his. " It
was the Satan Mekatrig that led thee astray. I am
well and strong. I will work for our child, and train
SATAN MEKATRIG 399
it up to pray for thee and to love thee. I have named
it Jacob, for it shall wrestle with the Recording Angel
and shall prevail."
The hue of death deepened on Moshe" Grinwitz's
face, but it was overspread by a divine calm.
" Ah, the good old times we had at the Cheder in
Poland," he said. "The rabbi was sometimes cross,
but we children were always in good spirits ; and
when the Rejoicing of the Law came round it was
such fun carrying the candles stuck in hollowed
apples, and gnawing at your candlestick as you
walked. I always loved Simchath Torah, Rivkoly.
How long is it to the Rejoicing ? "
" It will soon be here again, now Passover is over,"
she said, pressing his hand.
" Is Pesach over ? " he said mournfully. " I don't
remember giving Seder. Why didst thou not remind
me, Rivkoly ? It was so wrong of thee. Thou know-
est how I loved the sight of the table — the angels
always seemed to hover about it. Chad Gadyah !
Chad Gadyah ! " he commenced to sing in a cracked,
hoarse whisper. The child burst into a wail. " Hush,
hush, Yaankely," said the mother, taking it to her
breast.
" A — a — ah ! " A wild scream rose from Moshe
Grinwitz's lips. " My Kaddish ! Take not away my
Kaddish ! " He sat up, with clammy, ghastly brow,
and glared with sightless eyes, his arms groping. A
thin stream of blood oozed from his mouth.
400 SATAN MEKATRIG
" Hear, O Israel ! " screamed the woman, as she
put her hand to his mouth to stanch the blood.
He beat her back wildly. " Not thee ! I want
not thee ! My Kaddish ! " came the mad, hoarse
whisper. " I have blasphemed God ! Give me my
Kaddish ! give me my Kaddish ! "
She put the child into his arms, and he clutched it
in his dying frenzy. As he felt its feeble form, the
old divine peace came over his face. The babe's
cries were hushed in fear. The mother was dumb
and stony. And silently the Vapour crawled in
sluggish folds through the heavy air.
But in a moment the silence was broken by a deep,
stertorous rattle. Mosh£ Grinwitz's head fell back ;
his arms relaxed their hold of his child, which was
caught with a wild cry to its mother's bosom. And
the dark Vapour lifted, and showed the three figures
to the baleful, agonized eyes of the hunchback at the
open door.
IX
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
IX
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD1
Tchemnovosk, Saturday (midnight). — So ! The
first words have been written. For the first time in
my life I have commenced a diary. Will it prove
the solace I have heard it is ? Shall I find these now
cold, blank pages growing more and more familiar,
till I shall turn to them as to a sympathetic friend ;
till this little book shall become that loved and trusted
confidant for whom my lonely soul longs ? Instead
of either Black or White Clergy, this record in black
and white shall be my father confessor. Our village
pope, to whom I have so often confessed everything
but the truth, would be indeed shocked, if he could
gossip with this, his new-created brother. What a
heap of roubles it would take to tranquillize him !
Ah, God ! Ach, God of Israel ! how is it possible
that a man who has known the tenderest human ties
should be so friendless, so solitary in his closing
years, that not even in memory can he commune
with a fellow-soul ? Verily, the old curse has
1 In order to preserve the local colour, the Translator has occasion-
ally left a word or phrase of the MS. in the original Russian.
403
404 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
wrought itself out, that penalty of apostasy which
came to my mind the other day after nearly forty
years of forgetfulness, that curse which has filled my
spirit with shuddering awe, and driven me to seek
daily communion through thee, little book, even with
my own self of yesterday — " And that soul shall be
cut off from among its people" Yea, and from all
others, too ! For so many days and years Caterina
was my constant companion ; I loved her as my own
soul. Yet was she but a sun that dazzled my eyes
so that I could not gaze upon my own soul ; but a
veil between me and my dead youth. The sun has
sunk forever below the horizon ; the veil is rent.
No phantom from the other world hovers to remind
me of our happiness. Those years, with all their
raptures and successes, are a dull blank. It is the
years of boyhood and youth which resurge in my
consciousness ; their tints are vivid, their tones are
clear.
Why is this ? Is it Caterina's death ? Is it old
age? Is it returning to these village scenes after
half a lifetime spent in towns ? Is it the sight of
the izbas, and their torpid, tow-haired, sheepskin-
clad inhabitants, and the great slushy cabbage
gardens, that has rekindled the ashen past into
colours of flame ? And yet, except our vodka-
seller, there isn't a Jew in the place. However it
be, Caterina's face is filmy, phantasmal, compared
with my mother's. And mother died forty years
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 406
ago ; the grass of two short years grows over my
wife's grave. And Paul ? He is living — he kissed
me but a few moments back. Yet his face is far-
aw,ay — elusive. The hues of life are on my father's
— poor, ignorant, narrow-minded, warm-hearted fa-
ther, whose heart I broke. Happily I have not to
bear the remembrance of his dying look, but can
picture him as I saw him in those miserable, happy
days. My father's kiss is warm upon the lips which
my son's has just left cold. Poor St. Paul, living
up there with your ideals and your theories like
a dove in a balloon ! And yet, golubtchik, how I
love you, my handsome, gifted boy, fighting the
battle of life so pluckily and well ! Ah ! it is hard
fighting when one is hampered by a conscience.
Is it your fault that the cold iron bar of a secret
lies between our souls ; that a bar my own hands
have forged, and which I have not the courage or
the strength to break, keeps you from my inmost
heart, and makes us strangers ? No ; you are the
best of sons, and love me truly. But if your eyes
were purged, and you could see the ugly, hateful
thing, and through and beyond it, into my ugly,
hateful soul ! Ah, no ! That must never be. Your
affection, your reverential affection, is the only
sacred and precious thing yet left to me on earth.
If I lost that, if my spirit were cut off even from
the semblance of human sympathy, then might the
grave close over my body, as it would have already
406 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
closed over my soul. And yet should I have the
courage to die ? Yes ; for then Paul would know ;
Paul would obey my wishes and see me buried
among my people. Paul would hire mourners
(God ! hired mourners, when I have a son !) to say
the Kaddish. Paul would do his duty, though his
heart broke. Terrible, ominous words ! Break my
son's heart as I did my father's ! The saints — voi !
I mean God — forfend! And for opposite reasons.
AC/I, it is a strange world. Is religion, then, a
curse, eternally dividing man from man ? No, I
will not think these blasphemous thoughts. My
poor, brave Paul !
To-morrow will be a hard day.
Sunday Night. — I have just read over my last
entry. How cold, how tame the words seem, com-
pared with the tempest with which I am shaken.
And yet it is a relief to have uttered them ; to
have given vent to my passion and pain. Already
this scrawl of mine has become sacred to me; al-
ready this study in which I write has become a
sanctuary to which my soul turns with longing.
All day long my diary was in my thoughts. All
my turbulent emotions were softened by the know-
ledge that I should come here and survey them with
calm ; by the hope that the tranquil reflectiveness
which writing induces would lead me into some
haven of rest. And first let me confess that I am
glad Paul goes back to St. Petersburg on Tuesday.
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 407
It is a comfort to have him here for a few days,
and yet, oh, how I dread to meet his clear gaze!
How irksome this close contact, with the rough
rubs it gives to all my sore places ! How I ab-
horred myself to-day as I went through the ghastly
mimicries of prayer, and crossing myself, and genu-
flexion, in our little church. How I hate the sight
of its sky-blue dome and its gilt minarets ! When
the pope brought me the Gospel to kiss, fiery
shame coursed through my veins. And then when
I saw the look of humble reverence on Paul's face
as he pressed his lips to the silver-bound volume,
my blood was frozen to ice. Strange, dead memo-
ries seemed to float about the incense-laden air ;
shadowy scenes ; old, far-away cadences. And
when the deacon walked past me with his bougie,
there seemed to flash upon me some childish rec-
ollection of a joyous candle-bearing procession,
whereat my eyes grew filled with sudden tears.
The marble altar, the silver candlesticks, the glit-
tering jewelled scene faded into mist. And then
the choir sang, and under the music I grew calm
again. After all, religions were made for men.
And this one was just fitted for the simple muz-
hiks who dotted the benches with their stupid,
good natured figures. They must have their gold-
bedecked gods in painting and image ; and their
saints in gold brocade to kneel before at all hours to
solace themselves with visions of a brocaded Paradise.
408 DIARY OF A MESH U MAD
And yet what had I to do with these childish super-
stitions ? — I whose race preached the great doctrine
of the Unity to a world sunk in vice and superstition ;
whose childish lips were taught to utter the Shemang
as soon as they could form the syllables ; who know
that the Christian creed is a monstrous delusion ! To
think that I have lent the sanction of my manhood
to these grotesque beliefs. Grotesque, say I ? when
to Paul they are the essence of all lofty feeling and
aspiration ! And yet I know that he is blind, or sees
things with that strange perversion of vision of which
I have heard him accuse the Jews — my brethren.
He believes what he has been taught. And who
taught him ? Bozhe moi ! was it not I who have
brought him up in these degrading beliefs, which he
imagines I share ? God ! is this my punishment,
that he is faithful to the creed taught him by a father
who was faithless to his own ? And yet there were
excuses enough for me, Thou knowest. Why did
these forms and ceremonies, which now loom beauti-
ful to me through a mist of tears, seem hideous
chains on the free limbs of childhood ? Was it my
father's fault or my own that the stereotyped routine
of the day ; that the being dragged out of bed in the
gray dawn to go to synagogue, or to intone in monot-
onous sing-song the weary casuistries of the rabbis ;
that the endless precepts or prohibitions, made me
conceive religion as the most hateful of tyrannies ?
Through the cloud of forty years I can but dimly
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 409
recall the violence of the repulsion with which things
Jewish inspired me — of how it galled me to feel that
I was one of that detested race, that I was that
mockery and byword, a Zhit; that, with little sym-
pathy with my people, I was yet destined to partake
of its burdens and its disabilities. Bitter as my soul
is within me to-day, I can yet understand, can yet
half excuse, that fatal mistake of ignorant and ambi-
tious youth.
It were easy for me now to acknowledge myself a
Jew, even with the risk of Siberia before me. I am
rich, I have some of the education for which I
longed, above all, I have lived. Ah, how differently
the world, with its hopes and its fears, and its praise
and censure, looks to the youth who is climbing
slowly up the hill, and the man who is swiftly de-
scending to the valley ! But the knowledge of the
vanity of all things comes too late; this, too, is
vanity. Enough that I sacrificed the sincerity and
reality of life for unrealities, which then seemed
to me the only things worth having. There was
none to counsel, and none to listen. I fled my home;
I was baptized into the Church. At once all that
hampered me was washed away. Before me stretched
the free, open road of culture and well-being. I was
no longer the slave of wanton laws, the laughing-
stock of every Muscovite infant, liable to be kicked
and cuffed and spat at by every true Russian. What
mattered a lip-profession of Christianity, when I cared
410 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
as little for Judaism as for it ? I never looked back ;
my prior life faded quickly from my memory. Alone
I fought the battle of life — alone, unaided by man or
hope in God. A few lucky speculations on the
Bourse, starting from the risking of the few kopecks
amassed by tuition, rescued me from the need of
pursuing my law-studies. I fell in love and married.
Caterina, your lovely face came effectively between
me and what vague visions of my past, what dim un-
easiness of remorse, yet haunted me. You never
knew — your family never knew — that I was not a
Slav to the backbone. The new life lay fold on fold
over the old ; the primitive writing of the palimpsest
was so thickly written over, that no thought of what
I had once been troubled me during all those years
of wedded life, made happier by your birth and
growth, my Paul, my darling Paul ; no voice came
from those forgotten shores, save once, when — who
knows through what impalpable medium ? — I learnt
or divined my father's death, and all the air was filled
with hollow echoes of reproach. During those years
I avoided contact with Jews as much as I could ;
when it was inevitable, I made the contact brief.
The thought of the men, of their gabardines and
their pious ringlets, of their studious dronings and
their devout quiverings and wailings, of the women
with their coarse figures and their unsightly wigs ;
the remembrance of their vulgar dialect, and their
shuffling ways, and their accommodating morality,
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 411
filled me with repulsion. As if to justify myself to
myself, my mind conceived of them only in their
meanest and tawdriest aspects. The black points
alone caught my eye, and linked themselves into a
perfect-seeming picture.
Da, I have been a good Russian, a good Christian.
I have not stirred my little finger to help the Jews
in their many and grievous afflictions. They were
nothing to me. Over the vodka and the champagne
I have joined in the laugh against them, without
even feeling I was of them. Why, then, these
strange sympathies that agitate me now ; these feel-
ings, shadowy, but strong and resistless as the
shadow of death ? Am I sane, or is this but in-
cipient madness ? Am I sinking into a literal second
childhood, in which all the terrors and the sanctities
that once froze or stirred my soul have come to
possess me once more ? Am I dying ? I have
heard that the scene of half a century ago may be
more vivid to dying eyes than the chamber of death
itself. Has Caterina's death left a blank which
these primitive beloved memories rush in to fill up ?
Was it the light of her face that blinded me to the
dear homely faces of my father and mother ? If I
had not met her, how would things have been ?
Should I have repented earlier of my hollow ex-
istence ? Was it the genuineness of her faith in her
heathen creed that made me acquiesce in its daily
profession and its dominance in our household life ?
412 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
And are the old currents flowing so strongly now,
only because they were so long artificially dammed
up ? Of what avail to ask myself these questions? I
asked them yesterday and I shall be no wiser to-
morrow. No man can analyze his own emotions,
least of all I, unskilled to sound the depths of my
soul, content if the surface be unruffled. Perhaps,
after all, it is Paul who is the cause of the troubling
of the waters, which yet I am glad have not been
left in their putrid stagnation. For since Caterina's
clay-cold form was laid in the Moscow churchyard,
and Paul and I have been brought the nearer to-
gether for the void, my son has opened my eyes to
my baseness. The light that radiates from his own
terrible nobleness has shown me how black and pol-
luted a soul is mine. My whole life has been shuffled
through under false colours. Even if I shared few
of the Jew's beliefs, it should have been my duty —
and my proud duty — to proclaim myself of the race.
If, as I fondly believed, I was superior to my people,
then it behoved me to allow that superiority to be
counted to their credit and to the honour of the
Jewish flag. My poor brethren, sore indeed has been
your travail, and your cry of pain pierces the centu-
ries. Perhaps — who knows? — I could have helped
a little if I had been faithful, as faithful as Paul
will be to his own ideals. Ah, if Paul had been a
Jew — ! My God! is Paul a Jew? Have I upon my
shoulders the guilt of this loss to Judaism, too ?
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 413
Analyze myself, reproach myself, doubt my own
sanity how I may, one thing is clear. From the
bottom of my heart I long, I yearn, I burn to return
to the religion of my childhood. I long to say and
to sing the Hebrew words that come scantily and
with effort to my lips. I long to join my brethren at
prayer, to sit with them in the synagogue, in the
study, at the table; to join them in their worship and
at their meals; to share with them their joys and
sorrows, their wrongs and their inner delights.
Laugh at myself how I will, I long to bind my arm
and brow with the phylacteries of old and to wrap
myself in my fringed shawl, and to abase myself in
the dust before the God of Israel; nay, to don the
greasy gabardine at which I have mocked, and to let
my hair grow even as theirs. As yet this is all but
a troubled aspiration, but it is irresistible and must
work itself out in deeds. It cannot be argued with.
The wind bloweth as it listeth ; who shall say why I
am tempest-tossed ?
Monday Night. — Paul has retired to rest to rise
early to-morrow for the' journey to Moscow. For
something has happened to alter his plans, and he
goes thither instead of to the capital. He is sleeping
the sleep of the young, the hopeful, and the joyous.
Achy that what gives him joy should be to me — ;
but let me write down all. This morning at break-
fast Paul received a letter, which he read with a
cry of astonishment and joy. " Look, little father,
414 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
look," he exclaimed, handing it to me. I read, trying
to disguise my own feelings and to sympathize with
his gladness. It was a letter from a firm of well-
known publishers in Moscow, offering to publish a
work on the Greek Church, the MS. of which he had
submitted to them.
"Nu vof, batiushka" said he, " I will tell you that
this book donnera d penser to the theologians of the
bastard forms of Christianity."
The ribald remark that rose to my lips did not
pass them. " But why did you not tell me of this
before ? " I asked instead, endeavouring to infuse a
note of reproach into my indifference.
" Ah, father, I did not want you to distress your-
self. I knew your affection for me was so great
that you might want to stint yourself, and put your-
self to trouble to help me to pay the expenses of
publication myself. You would have shared my
disappointments. I wanted you to share my triumph
— as now. It is two years that I have been trying
to get it published. I wrote it in the year before
mother, whose soul is with the saints, left us. But,
eka ! I am recompensed at last." And his pale face
beamed and his dark eyes flashed with excitement.
Yes, Paul was right. As Paul always is. Brought
up, I think wisely, to believe in my comparative
poverty, he has become manlier for not having a
crutch to lean upon. Was it not enough that he was
devoid from the start of the dull, dead weight of
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 416
Judaism which clogged my own early years ? Up
to the present, though, he has not done so well as I.
Russian provincial journalism scatters few luxuries
to its votaries. Paul is so stupidly contented with
everything that he is not likely to write anything to
make a sensation. He has not invented gunpowder.
Paul's voice broke in curiously on my reflections.
" It ought to make some sensation. I have collected
a whole series of new arguments, partly textual,
partly historical, to show the absolute want of locus
standi of any other than the Orthodox Church."
" Indeed," I murmured, " and what is the Ortho-
dox Church ? " Paul stared at me.
"I mean," I added hastily, "your conception of
the Orthodox Church."
" My conception ? " said Paul. " I suppose you
mean how do I defend the conception which is
embodied in our ceremonies and ritual ? " And be-
fore I could stop him, he had given me a summary
of his arguments under which I would not have kept
awake if I had not been thinking of other things.
My poor boy ! So this wire-drawn stuff about the
Sacrament and the Lord's Supper is what has cost
you toilsome days and sleepless nights, while to me
the thought that I had embraced one variety of
Christianity rather than another had never before
occurred. All forms were the same to me, from
Catholicism to Calvinism ; the baptismal water had
glided from my back as from a duck's. True, I have
416 DIARY OF A MESH UM AD
lived with all the conventional surroundings of my
Christian fellow-countrymen, as I have lived with the
language of Russia on my lips, and subservient to
Russian customs and manners. But all the while I
was neither a Russian nor a Christian. I was a Jew.
Every now and again I roused myself to laudatory
assent to one of Paul's arguments when I divined by
his tone that it was due. But when he wound up
with a panegyric on " our glorious Russian State,"
and " our little father, the Czar, God's Vicegerent
on earth, who alone of European monarchs incar-
nates and unites in his person Church and State, so
that loyalty and piety are one," I could not refrain
from pointing out that it was a pure fluke that
Russia was " orthodox " at all.
" Suppose," said I, " Wladimir, when he made his
famous choice between the Creeds of the world, had
picked Judaism? It all turned on a single man's
whim."
" Father," Paul cried in a pained tone, " do not
be blasphemous. Wladimir was divinely inspired to
dower his country with the true faith. Just therein
lay the wisdom of Providence in achieving such great
results through the medium of an individual. It is
impossible that God should have permitted him to
incline his ear to the infidel Israelite, who has sur-
vived to be at once a link with the past and a living
proof of the sterility of the soul that refuses the liv-
ing waters. The millions of holy Russia perpetuat-
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 417
ing the stubborn heresy of the Jews — adopting an
unfaith as a faith ! The very thought makes the
blood run cold. Nay, then would every Russian
deserve to be sunk in squalor, dishonesty, and rapac-
ity, even as every Jew."
" Not every Jew, Paul," I remonstrated.
" No, not perhaps every Jew in squalor," he as-
sented, with a sarcastic . laugh ; "for too many of the
knaves have feathered their nests very comfortably.
Even the Raskolnik is more tolerable. And many
of them are not even Jews. The Russian Press is
infested with these fellows, who take the bread out
of the mouths of honest Christians, and will even
write the leaders in the religious papers. Believe
me, little father, these Jewish scribblers who have
planted their flagstaffs everywhere have cost me
many a heartache, many a disappointment."
I could not help thinking this sentiment somewhat
unworthy of my Paul, though it threw a flood of
light on the struggle, whose details he had never
troubled me with. I began to doubt my wisdom in
sending so unpractical a youth out into the battle of
life, to hew his way as best he might. But how was
I to foresee that he would become a writing man, that
he would be tripped up at every turn by some clever
Hebrew, and that his aversion from the race would
be intensified ?
" But surely," I said, after a moment of silence,
" our Slavic journalists are not all Christians, either."
418 DIARY OF A MESH UM AD
"They are not," he admitted sadly. "The Uni-
versities have much to answer for. Instead of rig-
idly excluding every vicious book that unsettles the
great social and religious ideals of which God de-
signed Russia to be the exponent, the works of Spen-
cer and Taine, and Karl Marx and Tourgue"nieff, and
every literary Antichrist, are allowed to poison faith
in the sap. The censor only bars the superficially
anti-Russian books. But there will come a reaction.
A reaction," he added solemnly, "to which this work
of mine may, by the grace of God, be permitted to
contribute."
I could have laughed at my son if I had not felt
so inclined to weep. Paul's pietism irritated me for
the first time. Was it that my reaction against my
past had become stronger than ever, was it that Paul
had never exposed his own narrowness so completely
before ? I know not. I only know I felt quite
angry with him. "And how do you know there
will ever be a reaction ? " I asked.
" Christ never leaves himself without a witness
long," he answered sententiously. "And already
there are symptoms enough that the creed of the
materialist does not satisfy the soul. Look at our
Tolsto'f, who is coming back to Christianity after
ranging at will through the gaudy pleasure-grounds
of science and life ; it is true his Christianity is cast
after his own formula, and that he has still much
intellectual pride to conquer, but he is on the right
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 419
road to the fountain of life. But, little father, you
are unlike yourself this morning," he went on, putting
his hand to my hot forehead. "You are not well."
He kissed me. " Let me give you another cup of
tea," he said, and turned on the tap of the samovar
with an air that disposed of the subject.
I sipped at my cup to please him, remarking in
the interval between two sips as indifferently as I
could, " But what makes you so bitter against the
Jews?"
"And what makes you so suddenly their cham-
pion ? " he retorted.
" When have I championed them ? " I asked,
backing.
" Your pardon," he said. " Of course I should
have understood you are only putting in a word for
them for argument's sake. But I confess I have no
patience with any one who has any patience with
these bloodsuckers of the State. Every true Russian
must abhor them. They despise the true faith, and
are indifferent to our ideals. They sneak out of the
conscription. They live for themselves, and regard
us as their natural prey. Our peasantry are cor-
rupted by their brandy-shops, squeezed by their
money-lenders, and roused to discontent by the
insidious utterances of their peddlers, d — d wander-
ing Jews, who hate the Government and the Tschinn
and everything Russian. When did a Jew invest his
money in Russian industries ? They are a filthy,
420 DIARY OF A ME S HUM AD
treacherous, swindling set. Believe me, batiuskka,
pity is wasted upon them."
" Pity is never spent upon them," I retorted.
"They are what the Russians — what we Russians
— have made them. Who has pent them into their
foul cellars and reeking dens? They work with
their brains, and you — we — abuse them for not
working with their hands. They work with their
hands, and the Czar issues a ukase that they are to
be driven off the soil they have tilled. It is ^Esop's
fable of the wolf and the lamb."
" In which the wolf is the Jew," said Paul coolly.
" The Jew can always be trusted to take care of him-
self. His cunning is devilish. Till his heart is re-
generate, the Jew remains the Ishmael of the modern
world, his hand against every man's, every man's
against his."
" ' Love thy neighbour as thyself,' " I quoted
bitterly.
"Even so," said Paul. "The Jew must be cut off,
even as the Christian must pluck out his own eye if
it offendeth him. Christ came among us to bring
not peace but a sword. If the Kingdom of Christ
is delayed by these vermin, they must be poisoned
off for the sake of Russia and humanity at large."
" Vermin, indeed ! " I cried hotly, for I could no
longer restrain myself. "And what know you of
these vermin of whom you speak with such assur-
ance ? What know you of their inner lives, of their
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 421
sanctified homes, of their patient sufferings ? Have
you penetrated to their hearths and seen the beauti-
ful naivett of their lives, their simple faith in God's
protection, though it may well seem illusion, their
unselfish domesticity, their sublime scorn of tempta-
tion, their fidelity to the faith of their ancestors,
their touching celebrations of fast and festival, their
stanchness to one another, their humble living and
their high respect for things intellectual, their un-
flinching toil from morn till eve for a few kopecks
of gain, their heroic endurance of every form of
torment, vilification, contempt — ?" I felt myself
bursting into tears and broke from the breakfast
table.
Paul followed me to my room in amazement. In
the midst of all my tempest of emotion I was no less
amazed at my own indiscretion.
" What is the matter with you ? " he said, clasping
his arm around my neck. " Why make yourself so
hot over this accursed race, for whom, from some
strange whim or spirit of perverseness, you stand up
to-day for the first time in my recollection ? "
"It is true; why indeed?" I murmured, striving
to master myself. After all, the picture I had
drawn was as ideal in its beauty as Paul's in its ugli-
ness. "Nu, I only wanted you to remember that
they were human beings."
"Ac/i, there is the pity of it," persisted Paul ;
" that human beings should fall so low. And who
422 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
has been telling you of all these angelic qualities
you roll so glibly off your tongue ? "
" No one," I answered.
"Then you have invented them. Ha! ha! ha!"
And Paul went off into a fit of good-humoured
laughter. That laughter was a sword between his
life and mine, but I let a responsive smile play across
my features, and Paul went to his own room in higher
spirits than ever.
We met again at dinner, and again at our early
supper, but Paul was too full of his book, and I of
my own thoughts to permit of a renewal of the dis-
pute. Even a saint, I perceive, has his touch of
egotism, and behind all Paul's talk of Russia's ideals,
of the misconceptions of their fatherland's function
by feather-brained Nihilists and Democrats possessed
of that devil, the modern spirit, there danced, I am
convinced, a glorified vision of St. Paul floating
down the vistas of the future, with a nimbus of
Russian ideals around his head. If he has only put
them as eloquently into his book as he talks of them,
he will at least be read.
But I have bred a bigot.
And the more bigoted he is, the more my heart
faints within me for the simple, sublime faith of my
people. Behind all the tangled network of ceremony
and ritual, the larger mind of the man who has lived
and loved sees the outlines of a creed grand in its
simplicity, sublime in its persistence. The spirit
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 423
has clothed itself on with flesh, as it must do for
human eyes to gaze on it and live with it ; and if,
in addition, it has swaddled itself with fold on fold
of garment, even so the music has not gone out of
its voice, nor the love out of its eyes.
As soon as Paul is gone to-morrow, I must plan
out my future life. His book will doubtless launch
him on the road to fame and fortune. But what
remains for me ? To live on as I am doing would
be intolerable. To do nothing for my people, either
with voice or purse, to live alone in this sleepy ham-
let, cut off from all human fellowship, alienated
from everything that makes my neighbours' lives
endurable — better death than such a death-in-life.
And yet is it possible that I can get into touch again
with my youth, that after a sort of Rip Van Winkle
sleep, I can take up again and retwine the severed
strands ? How shall my people receive again a
viper into its bosom ? Well, come what may, there
must be an end to this. Even at this moment
reproachful voices haunt my ear; and in another
moment, when I put down my pen to go to my
sleepless bed, I shall take care to light my bed-
room candle before extinguishing my lamp, for the
momentary darkness would be filled with impalpable
solemnity bordering on horror. Flashes and echoes
from the ghostly world of my youth, the faces of
my dead parents, strange fragments of sound and
speech, the sough of the wind in the trees of the
424 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
" House of the Living," the far-away voice of the
Chazan singing some melancholy tune full of heart-
break and weirdness, the little crowded Cheder
where the rabbi intoned the monotonous lesson, the
whizz of the stone little Ivanovitch flung at my fore-
head because I had " killed Christ " — . No, my
nerves are not strong enough to bear these visions
and voices.
All my life long I see now I have been reserved
and solitary. Never has any one been admitted to
my heart of hearts — not even Caterina. But now I
must unburden my soul to some one ere I die. And
to another living soul. For this dead sheet of paper
will not, I perceive, do after all.
Saturday Night. — Nearly a week has passed since
I wrote the above words, and I am driven to your
pages again. I would have come to you last night,
but suddenly I recollected that it was the Sabbath.
I have kept the Sabbath. I have prayed a few broken
fragments of prayer, recovered almost miraculously
from the deeps of memory. I have rested from every
toil. I stayed myself from stirring up the fire, though
it was cold and I was shivering. And a new peace
has come to me.
I have heard from Paul; he has completed the
negotiations with the Moscow booksellers. The book
is to have every chance. Of course, in a way I wish
it success. It cannot do much harm, and I am proud
of Paul, after all. What a rabbi he would have
DIARY OF A MESH UM AD 425
made ! It seems these publishers are also the owners
of a paper, and Paul is to have some work on it, which
will give him enough to live upon. So he will stay
in Moscow for a few months and see his book through
the press. He fears the distance is too great for
him to come to and fro, as he would have done had
he been at the capital. Though I know I shall long
for his presence sometimes in my strange reactions,
yet on the whole I feel relieved. To-morrow without
Paul will be an easier day. I shall not go to church,
though honest old Clara Petroffskovna may stare and
cross herself in holy horror, and spoil the borsch. As
for the neighbours — let the startchina and the staros-
tas and the retired major from Courland, and even
the bibulous Prince Shoubinoff, gossip as they will.
I cannot remain here now for more than a few weeks.
Besides, I can be unwell. No, on second thoughts, I
shall not be unwell. I have had enough of shuffling
and deceit.
Sunday. — A day of horrible ennui and despair.
I tried to read the Old Testament, of course in Rus-
sian, for Hebrew books I have none, and it is doubt-
ful whether I could read them if I had. But the
black cloud icmained. It chokes me as I write. My
limbs are as lead, my head aches. And yet I know
the ailment is not of the body.
Monday. — The depression persists. I made a lit-
tle expedition into the country. I rowed up the
stream in a duscehubka. I tried to forget everything
426 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
but the colours of the forest and the sparkle of the
waters. The air was less cold than it has been for
the last few days, but the russet of the pine-leaves
spoke to me only of melancholy and decay. The sun
set in blood behind the hills. Once I heard the howl
of the wolves, but they were far away.
Monday. — So. Just a week. Nicholas Alexan-
drovitch says I must not write yet, but I must fill up
the record, even if in a few lines. It is strange how
every habit — even diary-keeping — enslaves you, till
you think only of your neglected task. Ah, well ! if
I have been ill, I have been lucky in my period, for
those frightful storms would have kept me indoors.
Nicholas Alexandrovitch says it was a mild attack of
influenza. God preserve me from a severe one !
And yet would it not be better if it had carried me off
altogether ? But that is a cowardly thought. I must
face the future bravely, for my own hands have forged
my fate. How the writing trembles and contorts it-
self ! I must remember Nicholas's caution. He is a
frank, good-hearted fellow, is our village doctor, and
I have had two or three talks with him from between
the bedclothes. I don't think friend Nicholas is a
very devout Christian, by the by ; for he said one or
two things which I should have taken seriously, had
I been what he thinks I am ; but which had an auda-
cious, ironical sound to my sympathetic, sceptical
ears. How funny was that story about the Archi-
mandrite of Czernovitch !
DIAR Y OF A MESHUMAD 427
Thursday Afternoon. — My haste to be out of
bed precipitated me back again into it. But the
actual pain has been small. I have grown very
friendly with Nicholas Alexandrovitch, and he has
promised to spend the evening with me. I am better
now in body, though still troubled in mind. Paul's
silence has brought a new anxiety. He has not writ-
ten for twelve days. What can be the matter with
him ? I suppose he is overworking himself. And
now to hunt up my best cigarettes for Monsieur le
me'decin. Strange that illness should perhaps have
brought me a friend. Nothing, alas ! can bring me a
confidant.
ii p.m. — Astounding discovery! Nicholas Alex-
androvitch is a Jew ! I don't know how it was, but
suddenly something was said; we looked at each
other, and then a sort of light flashed across our
faces; we read the mutual secret in each other's
eyes; a magnetic impulse linked our hands together
in a friendly clasp, and we felt that we were brothers.
And yet Nicholas is a whole world apart from me in
feeling and conviction. How strange and myste-
rious is this latent brotherhood which binds our race
together through all differences of rank, country, and
even faith ! For Nicholas is an agnostic of agnos-
tics ; he is even further removed from sympathy with
my new-found faith than the ordinary Christian, and
yet my sympathy with him is not only warmer than,
but different in kind from, that which I feel toward
428 DIARY OF A MESH UM AD
any Christian, even Caterina's brother. I have told
him all. Yes, little book, him also have I told all.
And he sneers at me. But there lurks more frater-
nity in his sneer than in a Christian's applause. We
are knit below the surface like two ocean rocks,
whose isolated crests rise above the waters. Nicho-
las laughs at there being any Judaism to survive, or
anything in Judaism worth surviving. He declares
that the chosen people have been chosen for the
plaything of the fates, fed with illusions and windy
conceit, and rewarded for their fidelity with tor-
ture and persecution. He pities them, as he would
pity a dog that wanders round its master's grave, and
will not eat for grief. In fact, save for this pity, he
is even as I was until these new emotions rent me.
He is outwardly a Christian, because he could not
live comfortably otherwise, but he has nothing but
contempt for the poor peasants whose fever-wrung
brows he touches with a woman's hand. He looks
upon them only as a superior variety of cattle, and
upon the well-to-do people here as animals with all
the vices of the muzhiks, and none of their virtues.
For my Judaic .cravings he has a good-natured mock-
ery, and tells me I was but sickening for this in-
fluenza. He says all my symptoms are physical, not
spiritual ; that the loss of Caterina depressed me,
that this depression drove me into solitude, and that
this solitude in its turn reacted on my depression.
He thinks that religion is a secretion of morbid
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 429
minds, and that my Judaism will vanish again with
the last traces of my influenza. And, indeed, there
is much force in what he says, and much truth in his
diagnosis and analysis of my condition. He advises
me to take plenty of outdoor exercise, and to go
back again to one of the great towns. To go back
to Judaism, to ally one's self with an outcast race
and a dying religion is, he thinks, an act of folly
only paralleled by its inutility. The world will out-
grow all these forms and prejudices in time is his
confident assurance, as he puffs tranquilly at his
cigarette and sips his Chartreuse. He points out,
what is true enough, that I am not alone in my dis-
sent from the religion I profess ; for, as he epigram-
matically puts it, the greatest Raskolniks 1 are the
Orthodox. The religious statistics of the Procurator
of the State Synod are, indeed, a poor index to the
facts. Well, there is comfort in being damned in
company. I do not agree with him on any other
point, but he has done me good. The black cloud
is partially lifted — perhaps the trouble was only
physical, after all. I feel brighter and calmer than
for months past. Anyhow, if I am to become a Jew
again, I can think it out quietly. Even if I could
bear Paul's contempt, there would always be, as
Nicholas points out, great peril for me in renouncing
the Orthodox faith. True, it would be easy enough
to bribe the priest and the authorities, and to con-
1 Dissenters.
430 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
tinue to receive my eucharistical certificate. But
where is the sacrifice in that? It is hypocrisy ex-
changed for hypocrisy. And then what would
become of Paul's prospects if it were known his
father was a Zhit? But I cannot think of all this
now. Paul's silence is beginning to fill me with a
frightful uneasiness. A presentiment of evil weighs
upon me. My dear dove, my dusha Paul !
Friday Afternoon. — Still no letter from Paul. Can
anything have happened ? I have written to him,
briefly informing him that I have been unwell. I
shall ride to Zlotow and telegraph, if I do not hear
in a day or two.
Saturday Morning. — All petty and stupid thoughts
of my own spiritual condition are swallowed up in
the thought of Paul. Ever selfish, I have allowed
him to dwell alone in a far-off city, exposed to all the
vicissitudes of life. Perhaps he is ill, perhaps he is
half-starved on his journalistic pittance.
Saturday Night. — A cruel disappointment! A
letter came, but it was only from my man of business,
advising investment in some South American loan.
Have given him carte blanche. Of what use is my
money to me ? Even Paul couldn't spend it now,
with the training I have given him. He is only
fitted for the cowl. He may yet join the Black
Clergy. Why does he not write, my poor St. Paul ?
Sunday. — Obedient to the insistent clamour of
the bells, I accompanied Nicholas Alexandrovitch
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 431
to church, and mechanically asked help of the
Virgin at the street corner. For I have gone back
into my old indifference, as Nicholas predicted. I
have given the necessary orders. The paracladnoi
is ready. To-morrow I go to Zlotow ; thence I take
the train for Moscow. He will not tell me the truth
if I wire. . . . The weather is bitterly cold, and
the stoves here are so small. ... I am shivering
again, but a glass of vodka will put me right. ... A
knock. . . . Clara Petroffskovna has run to the
door. Who can it be ? Paul ?
Monday Afternoon. — No, it was not Paul. Only
Nicholas Alexandrovitch. He had heard in the vil-
lage that I was making preparations for a journey,
and came to inquire about it, and to reproach me for
not telling him. He looked relieved when I told
him it was only to Moscow to look after Paul. I fancy
he thought I had had a fit of remorse for my morn-
ing's devotions, and was off to seek readmission into
the fold. Except our innkeeper, there is not a Jew
in this truly God-forsaken place. Of course, I don't
reckon myself — or the doctor. I wonder if our pope
is a Jew ! I laugh — but who knows ? Anyhow I
am here, wrapped in my thickest fur cloak, while
it is Nicholas who is on the road to Moscow. He
spoke truly in saying I was too weak yet to under-
take the journey — that springless paracladnoi alone
is enough to knock a healthy man up; though
whether he was equally veracious in professing to
432 DIARY OF A MESH UM AD
have business to transact in Moscow, I cannot say.
Da, he is a good fellow, is my brother Nicholas.
To-morrow I shall know if anything has happened
to my son, to my only child.
Tuesday Night. — Thank God ! A wire from
Nicholas. " Have seen Paul. No cause for uneasi-
ness. Will write." Blessings on you, my friend, for
the trouble you have taken for me. I feel much
better already. Paul has, I suppose, been throwing
himself heart and soul into this new journalistic work,
and has forgotten his loving father. After all, it is
only a fortnight, though it has seemed months.
Anyhow, he will write. I shall hear from him in a
day or two now. But a sudden thought. "Will
write." Who will write ? Paul or Nicholas ? Oh,
Paul ; Paul without doubt. Nicholas has told him
of my anxiety. Yes. To-morrow night or the next
morning I shall have a letter from Paul. All is well.
If I were to tell Paul the truth, I wonder what he
would say ! I am afraid I shall never know.
Thursday Noon. — A letter from Nicholas. I can-
not do better than place it here.
" MY DEAR DEMETRIUS, — I hope you got my telegram and
are at ease again. I had a lively journey up here, travelling in
company with a Government employe, who is very proud of his
country, and of the Stanislaus cross round his neck. Such a
pompous ass I have never met ; he beats even our friend, Prince
Shoubinoff, in his Sunday clothes, with the barina on his arm.
As you may imagine, I drew him out like a telescope. I have
many a droll story for you when I return. To come to Paul. I
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 433
made it my business at once to call upon the publishers — it
is one of the largest firms here — and from them I learnt that
your son was still at the same address, in the Kitai-Gorod, as
that given in the first and only letter you have had from him.
I did not care about going there direct, for I thought it best that
he should be unaware of my presence, in case there should be
anything which it would be advisable for me to find out for your
information. However, by haunting the neighbourhood of the
offices of his newspaper, I caught sight of him within a couple
of hours. He has a somewhat over-wrought expression in his
countenance, and does not look particularly well. I fancy he is
exciting himself about the production of his book. He has not
seen me yet, nor shall I let him see me till I ascertain that he is
not in any trouble. It is only his silence to you that makes me
fancy something may be the matter ; otherwise I should unhesi-
tatingly put down his pallor and intensity of expression to
over-work and, perhaps, religious fervour. He went straight to
the Petrovski Cathedral on leaving the offices. I am here for
a few days longer, and will write again. It is frightfully cold.
The thermometer is at freezing point. I sit in my shuba and
shiver. Au revoir.
" NICHOLAS ALEXANDROVITCH."
There is something not quite satisfying about this
letter. It looks as if there was more beneath the
surface. Paul is evidently looking ill or ecstatic,
or both. But, at any rate, my main anxiety is
allayed. I can wait with more composure for
Nicholas's second letter. But why does not the
boy write himself ? He must have got the letter
telling him I had been unwell. And yet not a word
of sympathy! I don't half like Nicholas's idea of
playing the spy, though, as if my son is not to be
trusted. What can he suspect ? But Nicholas Alex-
434 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
androvitch dearly loves to invent a mystery for the
sake of ferreting it out. These scientific men are so
sharp that they often cut themselves.
Friday Afternoon. — At last Paul has written.
"Mv DARLING PAPASHA, — I am surprised you should be
anxious about me. I am quite comfortable here, and have now
conquered all the difficulties that beset me at the first. How
came you to allow yourself to be unwell? I hope Nicholas
Alexandrovitch is taking care of you. By the by, I almost
thought I saw him here this morning on the bridge, looking over
into the reka, but there was a church procession, and I had hur-
ried past the man before the thought struck me, and the odds
were so much against its being our zemski-doktor, that I would
not trouble to turn back. I have already corrected the proofs
of several sheets of my book. It will be dedicated, by
special permission, to Archbishop Varenkin. My articles in the
Courier are attracting considerable attention. I have left orders
for the publishers to send you my last, which will appear to-
morrow. May the holy Mother and the saints watch over you.
— Your devoted son, PAUL.
"P.S. — I am making more money than I want, and I shall
be glad to send you some, if you have any wants unsupplied."
My darling boy ! How could I ever have felt
myself alienated from you ? I will come to you
and live with you and share your triumphs. No
miserable scruples shall divide our lives any more.
The past is ineradicable ; the future is its inevi-
table fruit. So be it. My spiritual yearnings and
wrestlings were but the outcome of a morbid physi-
cal condition. Nicholas was right. And now to
read my son's article, which I have here, marked
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 435
with a blue border. Why should I, with my super-
ficial ponderings, be right and he wrong?
Saturday NigJit. — I have a vague remembrance
that three stars marked the close of the Sabbath.
And here in the frosty sky I see a whole host scin-
tillating in the immeasurable depths. The Sabbath
is over and once more I drag myself to my writing
desk to pour out the anguish of a tortured spirit. All
day I have sat as in a dumb trance gazing out beyond
the izbas and the cabbage fields toward the eternal
hills. How beautiful and peaceful everything is !
God, wilt Thou not impart to me the secret of peace ?
Little did I divine what awaited my eyes when
they rested fondly on the first sentence of Paul's
article. Voi, it was a pronouncement on the Jewish
question, venomous, scathing, mordant, terrific. It
was an indictment of the race, lit up with all the
glow of moral indignation ; cruel and slanderous, yet
noble and righteous in its tone and ideals ; base as
hell, yet pure as heaven; breathing a savagery as
of Torquemada, and a saintliness as of TolstoL
Paul in every line, my own noble, bigoted, wrong-
headed Paul. As I read it, my whole frame trem-
bled. A corresponding passion and indignation
stirred my blood to fever-heat. All 'my slumbering
Jewish instincts woke again to fresh life ; and I knew
myself for the weak, miserable wretch that I am.
To think that a son of mine should thus vilify his
own race. What can I do? Bozhe moi, what can
436 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
I do ? How can I stop this horrible, unnatural thing ?
I dare not open Paul's eyes to what he is doing. And
yet it is my duty. ... It is my duty. By that token
I know I shall not do it. Heaven have pity on me !
Tuesday. — Heaven have pity on Paul ! Here is
Nicholas's promised letter.
" DEAR DEMETRIUS, — I have strange news for you. It is
quite providential (I use the word without prejudice, as the
lawyers say) that I came here. But all is well now, so you may
read what follows without alarm. Last Thursday morning,
during my purposeful wanderings within Paul's usual circuit, I
came face to face with our young gentleman. His eyes stared
straight at me without seeing me. His face was ghastly white,
and the lines were rigid as if with some stern determination.
His lips were moving, but I could not catch his mutterings. He
held a sealed letter in his hand. I saw the superscription. It
was addressed to you. Instantly the dread came to my mind
that he was about to commit suicide, and that this was his fare-
well to you. I followed him. He posted the letter at the post-
office, turned back, threaded his way like a somnambulist across
the bridge, without, however, approaching the parapet, walked
mechanically onward to his own apartments, put the latch-key
into the house-door, and then fell back in a dead faint — into my
arms. I took him upstairs, explained what had happened, put
him to bed, and — I write this from the bedside. For the crisis
is over now ; the brain fever has abated, and he has now nothing
to do but to get well, though he will be longer about it than a
young fellow of his age has a right to be. His body is emaciated
with fasts and vigils and penances. I curse religion when I look
at him. As if the struggle for life were not hard enough without
humanity being hampered by these miserable superstitions.
But you will lie wanting to know what is the matter. Well,
batiushka, what should be the matter but the old, old matter ?
La femme is, strange to relate, a fine specimen of our own race
DIARY OF A MESH U MAD 437
of lovely women, my dear Demetrius. She is a Jewess of the
most orthodox family in Moscow, and therein lies the crux of
the situation. (I am not playing upon words, but the phrase is
doubly significant here.) Of course Paul has not the slightest
idea I know all this ; but of course I have had it from his hot
lips all the same. As far as I have been able to piece his broken
utterances together, they have had some stolen love passages,
each followed by swift remorse on both sides, and — another
furtive love passage. Paul has been comparing himself to St.
Anthony, and even to Jesus, when Satan, ce chef admirable,
spread a first-class dinner in the wilderness. But the poor lad
must have suffered much behind all his heroics. And what his
final resolution to give her up cost him is pretty evident. I sup-
pose he must have told you of it in that letter. Isn't it the
oddest thing in the world ? Rachel Jacobvina is the girl's name,
and her people keep a clothes' store round the corner, and her
father is the Parnass (you will remember what that means) of
his synagogue. She is a sweet little thing ; and Paul evidently
has a taste for other belles than belles-lettres. From what you
told me of him I fully expected this sort of thing. The poor
fellow is looking at me now from among his iced bandages with
a piteous air of resignation to the will of Nicholas Alexandrovitch
in bringing him back to this world of trouble when he already
felt his wings sprouting. Poor Paul ! He little dreams what I
am writing ; but he will get over this, and marry some fair, blue-
eyed Circassian with corresponding tastes in fasting, and an
enthusiastic longing for the Kingdom of God, when the year
shall be a perpetual Lent. In his failure to realize history,
he thinks it a crime to adore a Jewish virgin, though he
spends half his time in adoring the Madonna. How shocked
he would be if I pointed this out ! People who look through
ecclesiastical spectacles so rarely realize that the Holy Family
was a Jewish one. But my pen is running away with me, and
our patient looks thirsty. Proshchai.
" NICHOLAS."
"P.S. — There is not the slightest danger of a relapse unless
the image of this diabolical girl comes before him again. And I
438 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
keep his attention distracted. Besides, he had finally conquered
his passion. This illness was at once the seal and the witness
of his unchangeable resolve. I have heard him repeat the terms
of the letter of farewell he sent her. It was final."
So this was the meaning of your silence ; this the
tragedy that lay behind your simple sentence, "I
have now conquered all the difficulties which beset
me at the first." This was the motive that guided
your hand to write those bitter lines about our race,
so that you might henceforth cut yourself off from
the possibility of allying yourself with it even in
thought. I understand all now, my poor high-
mettled boy. How you must have suffered ! How
your pride must have rebelled at the idea that you
might have to make such a confession to me — little
knowing I should have hailed it with delight. That
temptation should have assailed you, too, at such a
period — when you were publishing your great work
on the ideals of Holy Russia ! Mysterious, indeed,
are the ways of Providence. And yet why may not
all be well after all, and Heaven grant me such grace
as I would willingly sacrifice my life to deserve ? It
is impossible that my son's passion can be utterly
dead. Such fires are only covered up. I will go to
him and tell him all. The news that he is a Jew
will revolutionize him. His love will flame up afresh
and take on the guise and glamour of duty. Love,
posing as logic, will whisper in his ear that no bars
of early training can avail to keep him from the race
DIARY OF A MESH UM AD 439
to which he belongs by blood and by his father's
faith. In this girl's eyes he will read God's message
of command, and I, God's message of Peace and
Reconciliation. The tears are in my eyes; I can
hardly see to write. The happiness I foresee is too
great. Blessings on your sweet face, Rachel Jacob-
vina, my own darling daughter that is to be. To you
is allotted the blessed task of solving a fearful prob-
lem, of rescuing and reuniting two human lives.
Yes, Heaven is indeed merciful. To-morrow I start
for Moscow.
Thursday. — How can I write it ? No, there is no
pity in Heaven. The sky smiles in steely blankness.
The air cuts like a knife. Paul is well, or as well as
a convalescent can be. He must have had a heart
of ice. But it is fortunate he had, seeing what the
icy fates have wrought. I arrived at Moscow, and
hurried in a droshky across the well-known bridge to
Paul's lodgings. A ghastly procession stopped me.
Some burlaks were bearing the corpse of a young
girl who had thrown herself into the ice-laden river.
A clammy foreboding gathered at my heart, but ere
I had time to say a word, an old, caftan-clad man,
with agonized eyes and a white, streaming beard,
dashed up, pulled off the face-cloth, revealing a
strange, weird loveliness, uttered a scream which
yet rings in my ears, threw himself passionately on
the body, rose up again, murmured something sol-
emnly and resignedly in Hebrew, rent his garments,
440 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
readjusted the face-cloth, and followed weeping in
the rear. And from lip to lip, that for once forgot
to curl in scorn, flew the murmur : " Rachel Jacob-
vina."
Saturday Night. — I slouched into the synagogue
this morning, the cynosure of suspicious eyes. I
nearly uncovered my head in forgetfulness. Some-
body offered me a Talith, which I wrapped round
myself with marked awkwardness. The service
moved me beyond measure. I have neither the pen
nor the will to describe my sensations. I was a youth
again. The intervening decades faded away. Ra-
chel's father said the Kaddish. The peace of God has
touched my soul. Paul is asleep. I have made Nich-
olas take his much-needed rest. I am reading the
Hebrew Psalms. The language comes back to me
bit by bit.
Monday. — Paul is sitting up reading — proofs. I
have been to condole with Rachel's father, as he sat
mourning upon the ground. I explained that I was
a stranger in the town, and had heard of the accident.
I have given five hundred roubles to the synagogue.
The whole congregation is buzzing with the generos-
ity of the rich Jewish farmer from the coimtry. For-
tunately there is no danger of Paul hearing anything
of my doings. He is a prisoner ; and Nicholas and
myself keep watch over him by turns.
Tuesday. — I have just come from a meeting of
the Palestine Colonization Society. Heavens, what
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 441
ideals burn in these breasts supposed to throb only
with cupidity and cunning ! Their souls still turn to
the Orient, as the needle turns to the pole. And
how the better-off among them pity their weaker
brethren ! With what enthusiasm they plot and plan
to get them beyond the frontier into freer countries,
but chiefly into the centre of all Jewish aspiration,
the Holy Land! How they wept when I doubled
their finances at a stroke. My poor, much-wronged
brethren !
#***##
Odessa, Monday. — It is almost a year since I
closed this book, and now, after a period of peace,
I am driven to it again. Paul has made an irruption
into my tranquil household. For eleven months now
I have lived in this little two-storied house overlook-
ing the roadstead, with Isaac and the ekonomka for
my sole companions. So long as I could pour my
troubles into the ear of the venerable old rabbi
(who was starving for material sustenance when I
took him, as I was for spiritual), so long I had no
need of you, my old confidant. But this visit of Paul
has reopened all my sores. I have smuggled the
rabbi out of the way ; but even if he were here, he
could not understand the terrible situation. The
God of Israel alone knows what I feel at having to
deny Him, at having to hide my faith from my own
son. He must not stay. The New Year is nigh,
with its feasts and fasts. Moreover, surrounded as
442 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
one is by spies, Paul's presence here may lead to
discoveries that I am not what the authorities imag-
ine. Perhaps it would have been better if I had
gone back to the village. But no. There was that
church-going. A village is so small. In this great
and bustling seaport I am lost, or comparatively so.
A few roubles in the ecclesiastical palm, and com-
plete oblivion settles on me.
To-night I shall know to what I owe this sudden
visit. Paul is radiant. He plays with his untold news
like a child with a new toy. He drops all sorts of mys-
terious hints. He frisks around me like a fond spaniel.
But he reserves his tit-bit for to-night, when the
tramp of the sailors and the perambulating peasantry
shall have died away, and we shall be seated cosily
in my study, smoking our cigarettes, and looking out
toward the quiet lights of the shipping. Of course it
is good news — Heaven help me, I fear Paul's good
news. Good news that Paul has come all the way
from St. Petersburg to tell me, which only his own
lips may tell me, must, if past omens speak truly, be
terrible. God grant I may survive the telling.
What a coward I am ! Have I not long since
made up my mind that Paul must go his way and I
mine ? What difference, then, can his news make to
me ? He will never know now that I am a Zhit, un-
less he hears it from my dying lips as I utter the dec-
laration of the Unity. I made up my mind to that
when I came here. Paul threatens to make his
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 443
mark as a writer on theological subjects. To tell him
the truth would only sadden him and do him no good;
while to reveal my own Judaism to the world would
but serve to damage him and injure his prospects.
This may seem but a cover for my cowardice, for my
fear of State reprisals ; but it is true for all that.
Bozke moi, is it not punishment enough not to be able
to join my brethren in their worship? I must remain
here, where I am unknown, practising my religion
unostentatiously and in secret. The sense of being
in a Jewish city satisfies my soul. We are here more
than a fourth of the population. House-rent and fuel
are very dear, but we thrive and prosper, thanks to
God. I give to our poor, through Isaac, but they
hardly want my help. I rejoice in the handsome
synagogues, though I dare not enter them. Yes, I
am best here. Why be upset by my boy's visit ? Paul
will tell me his news, I shall congratulate him, he
will go back to the capital, and all will be as before.
Monday Midnight. — No, all can never be as before.
One last step remained to divide our lives to all eter-
nity. Voi, Paul has taken it.
All came off as arranged. We sat together at my
window. It was a glorious night, and a faint, fresh
wind blew in from the sea. The lights in the har-
bour twinkled, the stars glistened in the sky. But as
Paul told me his good news, the whole horizon was
one great flame before my eyes. He began by re-
capitulating, though with fuller details than was pos-
444 DIARY OF A MESH UM AD
sible by letter, what I knew pretty well already ; the
story of the great success of his book, which had
been reviewed in all the theological magazines of
Europe, and had gone through four editions in the
year, and been translated into German and Italian ;
the story of how he had been encouraged to come to
St. Petersburg, and how he had prospered on the
press there. And then came the grand news — he
was offered the editorship of the Novoe Vremia, the
great St. Petersburg paper !
In an instant I realized all it meant, and in my
horror I almost fainted. Paul would direct this fa-
mous Government and anti-Semitic organ, Paul would
pen day after day those envenomed leaders, goading
on the mob to turn and rend their Jewish fellow-
citizens, denying them the rights of human beings.
Paul would direct the flood of sarcasm and misrep-
resentation poured forth day after day upon my inof-
fensive brethren. The old anguish with which I had
read that article a year ago returned to me ; but not
the old tempest of wrath. By sheer force of will I
kept myself calm. A great issue was at stake, and
I nerved myself for the contest.
"Paul," said I, "you are a lucky fellow." I
kissed him on the brow with icy lips. He saw
my great emotion, but felt it was but natural.
"Da," said he, " I am a lucky fellow. It is a
great thing. Few men have had such an oppor-
tunity at twenty-five."
DIARY OF A MESH U MAD 445
"Nutckosk? And how do you propose to util-
ize it?" I asked.
"Och, I must conduct the paper on the same gen-
eral lines," he said; "of course, with improvements."
"Amongst the latter the omission of the anti-
Semitic bias, I hope."
He stared at me. " Certainly not. The propri-
etors make its continuance on the same general
lines a condition. They are very good. They even
guard me against possible prosecutions by paying
a handsome salary to a man of straw. Ish-lui, it
is a fine berth that I've got."
Should I tell him the thing was impossible —
that he was a Jew ? No ; time for that when all
other means had failed. " Och, you have accepted
it?" I said.
" Of course I have, father. Why should I give
them time to change their minds ? "
" I should have thought you would have con-
sulted me first."
"Nu, uzh, I have never consulted you yet about
accepting work," he said in a wondering, disap-
pointed tone.
"Nuka, but this puts you finally into a career,
does it not ? "
"Certainly. That is why I accepted it, and I
thought you would be glad."
"That is why you should have refused it. But
I am glad all the same."
446 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
"I do not understand you, father."
"Nuka, golubtckik, listen," I said in my most
endearing tone, drawing my arm round his neck.
" Your struggles for existence were but struggles
for the sake of the struggle. You are not as other
young men. You have succeeded ; and the moment
you win the prize is the moment for retiring grace-
fully, leaving it in the hands of him who needs
it. Your fight was but a game I allowed you to
play. You are rich."
" Rich ? "
" Rich ! Nearly all my life I have been a
wealthy man. I own land in every part of Russia ;
I hold shares in all the most successful companies.
I have kept this knowledge from you so that you
might enjoy your riches more when you knew the
truth."
" Rich ? " He repeated the word again in a dazed
tone. "Ack, why did I not know this before ? "
"You had not succeeded. You had not had
your experience, my son, my dearest Paul. But
now your work is over, or rather your true work
begins. Freed from the detestable routine of a
newspaper office, you shall write your books and
work out your ideas at leisure, and relieved from
all material considerations."
"Da, it would have been a beautiful ideal —
once," he said ; then added fiercely : " Rich ? And
I did not know it."
DIARY OF A MESH UM AD 447
" But you were the happier for your ignorance."
" No, father. The struggle is too terrible. Often
have I sat and wept. Ish-lui, time after time my
book — destined as it was to success — came back
to me from the publishers. And I could have
produced it myself all along ! "
Pangs of remorse agitated me. Had my plan
been, indeed, a failure ? " But you have the pride
of unhelped success."
"And the bitter memories. And once — " He
paused.
" Once ? " I said.
"Once I loved a girl. She is dead now, so it
doesn't matter. There were many and complicated
obstacles to our union. With money they would
have been overcome."
" Poor boy ! " I said wonderingly, for I knew
nothing of this apparently new love episode. " For-
give me, my son, if I have acted mistakenly. Any-
how, from this moment your happiness is my sole
care."
" No," he said, with sudden determination. " It
is too late now. You meant it for the best, papa-
sha. But I do not want the money now. I have
money of my own — and glory. Why should I
give up what my own hands have won ? "
" Because I ask it of you, Paul ; because I ask
you to allow me to make reparation for the mis-
chief I have done."
448 DIARY OF A MESH UM AD
" The truest reparation will be to let things go
unrepaired," he said, with a touch of sarcasm. " I
shall be happier as editor of this paper. What
finer medium for my ideas than a great news-
paper? What more potent lever to my hand for
raising Holy Russia to a yet higher plane? No,
father. Let bygones be bygones. Give my share
of your wealth to a society for helping struggling
talent. I struggle no longer. Leave me to go on
in the path my pen has carved out."
I fell at his feet and begged him to let me have
my way, but some obstinate demon seemed to have
taken possession of his breast. I opened my desk
and showered bank-notes upon him. He spurned
them, and one flew out into the night. Neither of us
put out a hand to arrest its flight.
I saw that nothing but the truth had any chance to
alter his resolve. But I played one more card before
resorting to this dangerous weapon.
" Listen, my own dearest Paul," I burst out. " If
money will not tempt you, let a father's petition per-
suade you. Learn, then, that I dread your taking
this position because you will perpetually have to
attack the Jews — "
"As they deserve," he put in.
" Be it so. But I — I have a kindness for this
oppressed race."
He looked at me in silence, as if awaiting further
DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 449
explanation. I gave it, blurting out the shameful lie
with ill-concealed confusion.
" Once upon a time I — I loved a Jewess. I could
not marry her, of course. But ever since that time I
have had a soft place in my heart for her unhappy
race."
A look of surprise flashed into Paul's eyes. Then
his face grew tender. He took my hand in his.
" Father, we have a common sorrow," he said.
"The girl I spoke of was a Jewess."
" How ? " I exclaimed, surprised in my turn. It
was the same affair, then.
"Yes, she was a Jewess. But I taught her the
truth. Christ was revealed to her prisoned soul. She
would have fled with me if we had had the means,
and if I had been able to support her in some other
country. But she did not dare be baptized and stay
in Moscow or anywhere near. She said her father
would have killed her. The only alternative was for
me to embrace Judaism. Impossible as you may
think it, father, and I confess it to my eternal shame,
at the very period I was correcting the proofs of my
book, I was wrestling with a temptation to embrace
this Satanic heresy. But I conquered the tempta-
tion. It was easy to conquer. To renounce the
faith which was my blessed birthright would, as you
know, have cost me dear. Selfishness warred for
once on the side of salvation. Rachel wished to fly
450 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
with me. I knew she would have been poor and
unhappy. I refused to take advantage of her girl-
ish impetuousness. I heard afterward that she
had drowned herself." The tears rained down his
cheeks.
" We had arranged to wait till I could save a stock of
money. Vbi, the delay undid us. One day Rachel's
father called on me. He had got wind of our secret.
He fell at my feet and tore his hair, and wept and
conjured me not to darken his home and his life. A
Jewess could only wed a Jew, he said. If I had only
been born a Jew all would have been well. But his
Rachel had, perhaps, talked of becoming a Christian.
Did I not know that was impossible ? As well expect
the sheep to howl like the wolf. Blood was thicker
than baptismal water. Her heart would always
cleave to her own religion. And was my love so
blind as not to see that even if she spoke of Chris-
tianity it was only to please me ? that she only
kissed the crucifix that I might kiss her, and knelt to
the Virgin that I might kneel to her ? At home, he
swore it with fearful oaths, she was always bitterly
sarcastic at the expense of the true faith. I believed
him. My God, I believed him ! For at times I had
feared it myself. I would be no party to such carnal
blasphemy, and charged him with a note of farewell.
When he went I felt as if I had escaped from a terri-
ble temptation. I fell on my knees and thanked the
saints."
DIARY OF A MRS HUM AD 451
" But why did you not tell me this at the time ? " I
cried in intolerable anguish.
"Nu; to what end? It would only have worried
you. I did not know you were rich."
"And at this time you offered to send me money ! "
I said, with sudden recollection.
" Since I had not enough, you might as well have
some of it. Anyhow, father, you see all this has
made no difference to me. I shall never marry now,
of course; but it hasn't altered the opinion I have
always had of the Jews — rather corroborated it.
Rachel told me enough of the superstitious slavery
amid which she was forced to live. I have no doubt
now that her father lied. But for his pigheaded
tribalism, Rachel would have been alive to-day. So
why your love for a Jewish girl should make you
tender to the race I do not see, dearest father.
There are always exceptions to everything — Rachel
was one ; the woman you loved was another. And
now it is very late ; I think I will go to bed."
He kissed me and went out at the door. Then he
came back and put his head inside again. A sweet,
sad, winning smile lit up his pale, thoughtful face.
" I will put you on the free list of the Novoe
Vremia, father," he said. " Good-night, papasha."
What could I say ? What could I do ? I called
up a smile to my trembling lips.
"Good-night, Paul," I said.
I shall never tell him now.
452 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
Tuesday, $a.m. — I reopen these pages to note an
ironic climax to this bitter day. Through the ex-
citement of Paul's coming I had not read my letters.
After sitting here in a numb trance for hours, I sud-
denly bethought me of them. One is from my busi-
ness man, informing me that he has just sold the
South American stock, respecting which I gave him
carte blanche. I go to bed richer by five thousand
roubles.
******
Odessa, Wednesday Night. — Six months have
passed. I am on the free list of the Novoe Vre-
mia. Almost every day brings me a fresh stab as
I read. But I am a "constant reader." It is my
penance, and I bear it as such. After a long silence,
I have just had a letter from Nicholas Alexandro-
vitch, and I reopen my diary to note it. He is about
to marry a prosperous widow, and is going over to
Catholicism. He writes he is very happy. Lucky,
soulless being. He does not know he will be a richer
man when I die. Happily, I am ready, though it
were to-day. My peace is made, I hope, with God
and man, though Paul knows nothing even now.
He could not fail to learn it, though, if he came to
Odessa again. I have bribed the spies and the clergy
heavily. Thanks to their silence, I am one of the
most prominent Jews of the. town, and nobody dreams
of connecting me with the trenchant editor of the
Novae Vremia. I see now that I could have acted
DIARY OF A MESH UM AD 463
so all along, if I had not been such a coward. But I
keep Paul away. It is my last cowardice. In a
postscript Nicholas writes that Paul's articles are
causing a great sensation in the remotest parts of
Russia. Alas, I know it. Are there not anti-Jewish
riots in all parts, encouraged by cruel Government
measures ? Do not the local newspapers everywhere
reproduce Paul's printed firebrands ? Have I not the
pleasure of coming across them again in our own
Odessa papers, in the Wiertnik and the Listok? I
should not wonder if we had an outbreak here.
There was a little affray yesterday in the pereouloks
of the Jewish quarter, though we are quiet enough
down this way. . . . Great God ! What is that
noise I hear ? . . . Yes ! it is ! it is ! " Down with
the Zhits ! Down with the Zhits ! " There is red
on the horizon. Bozhe mot! It is flame! Voi!
They are pillaging the Jewish quarter. The sun
sinks in blood, as on that unhappy day among the
village hills. . . . Ach ! Paul, Paul ! Why did I
not stop your murderous pen ? . . . But if not you,
another would have written. . . . No, that is no
excuse. . . . Forgive me, O God, I have been weak.
Ever weak and cowardly from the day I first de-
serted Thee, even unto this day. ... I am not
worthy of my blood, of my race. . . . They are
coming this way. It goes through me like a knife.
" Down with the Zhits ! Down with the Zhits ! "
And now I see them. They are mad, drunk with
464 DIARY OF A MESHUMAD
the vodka they have stolen from the Jewish inns.
Great God ! They have knives and guns. And
their leader is nourishing a newspaper and shout-
ing out something from it. There are soldiers among
them, and sailors, native and foreign, and mad muz-
hiks. Where are the police ? . . . The mob is pass-
ing under my window. God pity me, it is Paul's
words they are shouting. . . . They have passed.
No one thinks of me. Thank God, I am safe. I
am safe from these demons. What a narrow escape !
. . . Ah, God, they have captured Rabbi Isaac and
are dragging him along by his white beard toward
the barracks. My place is by his side. I will rouse
my brethren. We are not a few. We will turn on
these dogs and rend them. ProsJtcha'i, my loved
diary. Farewell ! I go to proclaim the Unity.
X
"INCURABLE"
X
"INCURABLE"
"Cast off among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave.
Whom Thou rememberest no more, and they are cut off from Thy
hand, Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in
the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me and Thou hast afflicted
me with all Thy waves. Thou hast put mine acquaintance far
from me ; Thou hast made me an abomination unto them ; I am
shut up and I cannot come forth. Mine eye wasteth away by
reason of affliction. I have called daily upon Thee, O Lord, I
have spread forth my hands unto Thee.'1'' — Eighty-eighth Psalm.
THERE was a restless air about the Refuge. In
a few minutes the friends of the patients would be
admitted. The Incurables would hear the latest
gossip of the Ghetto, for the world was still very
much with these abortive lives, avid of sensations,
Jewish to the end. It was an unpretentious institu-
tion— two corner houses knocked together — near
the east lung of London ; supported mainly by the
poor at a penny a week, and scarcely recognized by
the rich ; so that paraplegia and vertigo and rachitis
and a dozen other hopeless diseases knocked hope-
lessly at its narrow portals. But it was a model
institution all the same, and the patients lacked for
nothing except freedom from pain. There was even
457
468 "INCURABLE "
a miniature synagogue for their spiritual needs, with
the women's compartment religiously railed off from
the men's, as if these grotesque ruins of sex might
still distract each other's devotions.
Yet the Rabbis knew human nature. The sprightly,
hydrocephalous, paralytic Leah had had the chair she
inhabited carried down into the men's sitting-room
to beguile the moments, and was smiling fascinat-
ingly upon the deaf blind man, who had the Braille
Bible at his fingers' ends, and read on as stolidly as
St. Anthony. Mad Mo had strolled vacuously into
the ladies' ward, and, indifferent to the pretty white-
aproned Christian nurses, was loitering by the side
of a weird, hatchet-faced cripple with a stiletto-
shaped nose supporting big spectacles. Like most
of the patients she was up and dressed ; only a few
of the white pallets ranged along the walls were
occupied.
" Leah says she'd be quite happy if she could
walk like you," said Mad Mo in complimentary tones.
" She always says Milly walks so beautiful. She
says you can walk the whole length of the garden."
Milly, huddled in her chair, smiled miserably.
" You're crying again, Rebecca," protested a dark-
eyed, bright-faced dwarf in excellent English, as she
touched her friend's withered hand. "You are in
the blues again. Why, that page is all blistered."
"No — I feel so nice," said the sad-eyed Russian
in her quaint musical T accent. " You sail not tink
"INCURABLE " 459
I cry because I am not happy. Ven I read sad tings
— like my life — den only I am happy."
The dwarf gave a short laugh that made her pen-
dent earrings oscillate. " I thought you were brood-
ing over your love affairs," she said.
" Me ! " cried Rebecca. " I lost too young my
leg to be in love. No, it is Psalm eighty-eight dat
I brood over. ' I am afflicted and ready to die from
my yout' up.' Yes, I vas only a girl ven I had to
go to Konigsberg to find a doctor to cut off my leg.
' Lover and friend hast dou put far from me, and
mine acquaintance into darkness ! ' '
Her face shone ecstatic.
" Hush ! " whispered the dwarf, with a warning
nudge and a slight nod in the direction of a neigh-
bouring waterbed on which a pale, rigid, middle-aged
woman lay, with shut sleepless eyes.
"Se cannot understand Englis'," said the Russian
girl proudly.
" Don't be so sure, look how the nurses here have
picked up Yiddish ! "
Rebecca shook her head incredulously. " Sarah is
a Polis' woman," she said. " For years dey are in
England and dey learn noting."
"Ich bin krank ! Krank ! Krank ! " suddenly
moaned a shrivelled Polish grandmother — an ad-
vanced centenarian — as if to corroborate the girl's
contention. She was squatting monkey-like on her
bed, every now and again murmuring her querulous
460 "INCURABLE "
burden of sickness, and jabbering at the nurses to
shut all the windows. Fresh air she objected to
as vehemently as if it were butter or some other
heterodox dainty.
Hard upon her crooning came bloodcurdling
screams from the room above, sounds that reminded
the visitor he was not in a " Barnum " show, that the
monstrosities were genuine. Pretty Sister Margaret
— not yet indurated — thrilled with pity, as before
her inner vision rose the ashen perspiring face of the
palsied sufferer, who sat quivering all the long day in
an easy-chair, her swollen jelly-like hands resting on
cotton-wool pads, an air-pillow between her knees,
her whole frame racked at frequent intervals by fierce
spasms of pain, her only diversion faint blurred re-
flections of episodes of the street in the glass of a
framed picture ; yet morbidly suspicious of slow
poison in her drink, and cursed with an incurable
vitality.
Meantime Sarah lay silent, bitter thoughts moving
beneath her white, impassive face like salt tides below
a frozen surface. It was a strong, stern face, telling
of a present of pain, and faintly hinting at a past of
prettiness. She seemed alone in the populated ward,
and indeed the world was bare for her. Most of her
life had been spent in the Warsaw Ghetto, where she
was married at sixteen, nineteen years before. Her
only surviving son" — a youth whom the English at-
mosphere had not improved — had sailed away to
"INCURABLE " 461
trade with the Kaffirs. And her husband had not
been to see her for a fortnight !
When the visitors began to arrive, her torpor van-
ished. She eagerly raised the half of her that was
not paralyzed, partially sitting up. But gradually
expectation died out of her large gray eyes. There
was a buzz of talk in the room — the hydrocephalous
girl was the gay centre of a group ; the Polish grand-
mother who cursed her grandchildren when they
didn't come and when they did, was denouncing their
neglect of her to their faces ; everybody had some-
body to kiss or quarrel with. One or two acquaint-
ances approached the bed-ridden wife, too, but she
would speak no word, too proud to ask after her hus-
band, and wincing under the significant glances oc-
casionally cast in her direction. By and by she had
the red screen placed round her bed, which gave her
artificial walls and a quasi-privacy. Her husband
would know where to look for her —
" Woe is me ! " wailed her centenarian country-
woman, rocking to and fro. " What sin have I com-
mitted to get such grandchildren ? You only come
to see if the old grandmother isn't dead yet. So sick !
So sick ! So sick ! "
Twilight filled the wards. The white beds looked
ghostly in the darkness. The last visitor departed.
Sarah's husband had not yet come.
" He is not well, Mrs. Kretznow," Sister Margaret
ventured to say in her best Yiddish. " Or he is busy
462 "INCURABLE "
working. Work is not so slack any more." Alone
in the institution she shared Sarah's ignorance of the
Kretznow scandal. Talk of it died before her youth
and sweetness.
" He would have written," said Sarah sternly.
" He is awearied of me. I have lain here a year.
Job's curse is on me."
" Shall I to him " — Sister Margaret paused to
excogitate the Yiddish word — " write ? "
" No ! He hears me knocking at his heart."
They had flashes of strange savage poetry, these
crude yet complex souls. Sister Margaret, who was
still liable to be startled, murmured feebly, "But — "
" Leave me in peace ! " with a cry like that of a
wounded animal.
The matron gently touched the novice's arm and
drew her away. "/ will write to him," she whis-
pered.
Night fell, but sleep fell only for some. Sarah
Kretznow tossed in a hell of loneliness. Ah, surely
her husband had not forgotten her — surely she
would not lie thus till death — that far-off death her
strong religious instinct would forbid her hastening !
She had gone into the Refuge to save him the con-
stant sight of her helplessness and the cost of her
keep. Was she now to be cut off forever from the
sight of his strength ?
The next day he came — by special invitation. His
face was sallow, rimmed with swarthy hair ; his un-
"INCURABLE " 463
der lip was sensuous. He hung his head, half veiling
the shifty eyes.
Sister Margaret ran to tell his wife. Sarah's face
sparkled.
" Put up the screen ! " she murmured, and in its
shelter drew her husband's head to her bosom and
pressed her lips to his hair.
But he, surprised into indiscretion, murmured : " I
thought thou wast dying."
A beautiful light came into the gray eyes.
" Thy heart told thee right, Herzel, my life. I
was dying — for a sight of thee."
" But the matron wrote to me pressingly," he
blurted out. He felt her breast heave convulsively
under his face ; with her hands she thrust him away.
" God's fool that I am — I should have known ;
to-day is not visiting day. They have compassion
on me — they see my sorrows — it is public talk."
His pulse seemed to stop. " They have talked to
thee of me," he faltered.
" I did not ask their pity. But they saw how I
suffered — one cannot hide one's heart."
" They have no right to talk," he muttered in
sulky trepidation.
"They have every right," she rejoined sharply.
"If thou hadst come to see me even once — why
hast thou not ? "
"I — I — have been travelling in the country with
cheap jewellery. The tailoring is so slack."
464 "INCURABLE "
" Look me in the eyes ! Law of Moses ? No, it
is a lie. God shall forgive thee. Why hast thou not
come ? "
" I have told thee."
" Tell that to the Sabbath Fire- Woman ! Why hast
thou not come ? Is it so very much to spare me an
hour or two a week ? If I could go out like some of
the patients, I would come to thee. But I have tired
thee out utterly — "
" No, no, Sarah," he murmured uneasily.
"Then why—?"
He was covered with shame and confusion. His
face was turned away. " I did not like to come," he
said desperately.
" Why not ? " Crimson patches came and went
on her white cheeks ; her heart beat madly.
" Surely thou canst understand!"
" Understand what ? I speak of green and thou
answerest of blue ! "
" I answer as thou askest."
" Thou answerest not at all."
" No answer is also an answer," he snarled, driven
to bay. "Thou understandest well enough. Thy-
self saidst it was public talk."
"Ah — h — h!"in a stifled shriek of despair. Her
intuition divined everything. The shadowy, sinister
suggestions she had so long beat back by force of
will took form and substance. Her head fell back
on the pillow, the eyes closed.
"INCURABLE " 465
He stayed on, bending awkwardly over her.
" So sick ! So sick ! So sick ! " moaned the
wizened grandmother.
"Thou sayest they have compassion on thee in
their talk," he murmured at last, half deprecatingly,
half resentfully ; " have they none on me ? "
Her silence chilled him. " But thou hast compas-
sion, Sarah," he urged. "Thou understandest."
Presently she reopened her eyes.
" Thou art not gone ? " she murmured.
" No — thou seest I am not tired of thee, Sarah,
my life! Only — "
" Wilt thou wash my skin, and not make me wet ? "
she interrupted bitterly. " Go home. Go home to
her ! "
" I will not go home."
" Then go under like Korah."
He shuffled out. That night her lonely hell was
made lonelier by the opening of a peep-hole into
Paradise — a paradise of Adam and Eve and for-
bidden fruit. For days she preserved a stony silence
toward the sympathy of the inmates. Of what avail
words against the flames of jealousy in which she
writhed ?
He lingered about the passage on the next visiting
day, vaguely remorseful, but she would not see him.
So he went away, vaguely indignant, and his new
housemate comforted him, and he came no more.
When you lie on your back all day and all night
486 "INCURABLE "
you have time to think, especially if you do not sleep.
A situation presents itself in many lights from dawn
to dusk and from dusk to dawn. One such light
flashed on the paradise, and showed it to her as
but the portico of purgatory. Her husband would
be damned in the next world, even as she was in
this. His soul would be cut off from among its
people.
On this thought she brooded till it loomed horribly
in her darkness. And at last she dictated a letter to
the matron, asking Herzel to come and see her.
He obeyed, and stood shame-faced at her side,
fidgeting with his peaked cap. Her hard face
softened momentarily at the sight of him, her bosom
heaved, suppressed sobs swelled her throat.
" Thou hast sent for me ? " he murmured.
" Yes — perhaps thou didst again imagine I was
on my death-bed ! " she replied, with bitter irony.
"It is not so, Sarah. I would have come of myself
— only thou wouldst not see my face."
" I have seen it for twenty years — it is another's
turn now."
He was silent.
" It is true all the same — I am on my death-bed."
He started. A pang shot through his breast. He
darted an agitated glance at her face.
" Is it not so ? In this bed I shall die. But God
knows how many years I shall lie in it."
Her calm gave him an uncanny shudder.
"INCURABLE " 467
"And till the Holy One, blessed be He, takes me,
thou wilt live a daily sinner."
" I am not to blame. God has stricken me. I am
a young man."
" Thou art to blame ! " Her eyes flashed fire.
" Blasphemer ! Life is sweet to thee — yet per-
chance thou wilt die before me."
His face grew livid. " I am a young man," he
repeated tremulously.
" Dost thou forget what Rabbi Eliezer said ?
' Repent one day before thy death' — that is to-day,
for who knows ? "
"What wouldst thou have me do?"
" Give up — "
" No, no," he interrupted. " It is useless. I can-
not. I am so lonely."
" Give up," she repeated inexorably, " thy wife."
"What sayest thou? My wife! But she is not
my wife. Thou art my wife."
" Even so. Give me up. Give me Get (divorce)."
His breath failed, his heart thumped at the sug-
gestion.
" Give thee Get /" he whispered.
"Yes. Why didst thou not send me a bill of
divorcement when I left thy home for this ? "
He averted his face. " I thought of it," he stam-
mered. " And then — "
"And then?" He seemed to see a sardonic glitter
in the gray eyes.
468 "INCURABLE "
"I — I was afraid."
" Afraid ! " She laughed in grim mirthlessness.
" Afraid of a bed-ridden woman ! "
" I was afraid it would make thee unhappy." The
sardonic gleam melted into softness, then became
more terrible than before.
" And so thou hast made me happy instead ! "
" Stab me not more than I merit. I did not think
people would be cruel enough to tell thee."
"Thine own lips told me."
" Nay — by my soul," he cried, startled.
"Thine eyes told me, then."
" I feared so," he said, turning them away.
" When she came into my house, I — I dared not go
to see thee — that was why I did not come, though I
always meant to, Sarah, my life. I feared to look
thee in the eyes. I foresaw they would read the se-
cret in mine — so I was afraid."
"Afraid ! " she repeated bitterly. "Afraid I would
scratch them out ! Nay, they are good eyes. Have
they not seen my heart ? For twenty years they
have been my light. . . . Those eyes and mine have
seen our children die."
Spasmodic sobs came thickly now. Swallowing
them down, she said, "And she — did she not ask
thee to give me Get ? "
" Nay, she was willing to go without. She said
thou wast as one dead — look not thus at me. It is
the will of God. It was for thy sake, too, Sarah,
"INCURABLE " 469
that she did not become my wife by law. She, too,
would have spared thee the knowledge of her."
" Yes ; ye have both tender hearts ! She is a
mother in Israel, and thou art a spark of our father
Abraham."
" Thou dost not believe what I say ? "
" I can disbelieve it, and still remain a Jewess."
Then, satire boiling over into passion, she cried
vehemently, " We are threshing empty ears. Think-
est thou I am not aware of the Judgments — I, the
granddaughter of Reb Shloumi (the memory of the
righteous for a blessing) ? Thinkest thou I am ig-
norant thou couldst not obtain a Get against me —
me who have borne thee children, who have wrought
no evil ? I speak not of the Beth-Din, for in this
impious country they are loath to follow the Judg-
ments, and from the English Beth-Din thou wouldst
find it impossible to obtain the Get in any case, even
though thou didst not marry me in this country, nor
according to its laws. I speak of our own Rabbonini
— thou knowest even the Maggid would not give
thee Get merely because thy wife is bed-ridden.
That — that is what thou wast afraid of."
" But if thou art willing, — " he replied eagerly,
ignoring her scornful scepticism.
His readiness to accept the sacrifice was salt upon
her wounds.
"Thou deservest I should let thee burn in the
lowest Gehenna," she cried.
470 "INCURABLE "
"The Almighty is more merciful than thou," he
answered. " It is He that hath ordained it is not
good for man to live alone. And yet men shun me
— people talk — and she — she may leave me to my
loneliness again." His voice faltered with self-pity.
" Here thou hast friends, nurses, visitors. I — I
have nothing. True, thou didst bear me children,
but they withered as by the evil eye. My only son
is across the ocean ; he hath no love for me or
thee."
The recital of their common griefs softened her
toward him.
" Go ! " she whispered. " Go and send me the
Get. Go to the Maggid, he knew my grandfather.
He is the man to arrange it for thee with his friends.
Tell him it is my wish."
" God shall reward thee. How can I thank thee
for giving thy consent ? "
" What else have I to give thee, my Herzel, I who
eat the bread of strangers ? Truly says the Proverb,
4 When one begs of a beggar the Herr God laughs ! ' '
" I will send thee the Get as soon as possible."
" Thou art right, I am a thorn in thine eye. Pluck
me out quickly."
" Thou wilt not refuse the Get, when it comes ? "
he replied apprehensively.
"Is it not a wife's duty to submit ? " she asked
with grim irony. " Nay, have no fear. Thou shalt
have no difficulty in serving the Get upon me. I
"INCURABLE " 471
will not throw it in the messenger's face. . . . And
thou wilt marry her ? "
"Assuredly. People will no longer talk. And
she must needs bide with me. It is my one desire."
" It is mine likewise. Thou must atone and save
thy soul."
He lingered uncertainly.
" And thy dowry ? " he said at last. " Thou wilt
not make claim for compensation ? "
" Be easy — I scarce know where my Cesubah
(marriage certificate) is. What need have I of
money? As thou sayest, I have all I want. I do
not even desire to purchase a grave — lying already
so long in a charity-grave. The bitterness is over."
He shivered. "Thou art very good to me," he
said. " Good-bye."
He stooped down — she drew the bedclothes fren-
ziedly over her face.
" Kiss me not ! "
" Good-bye, then," he stammered. " God be good
to thee ! " He moved away.
" Herzel ! " She had uncovered her face with a
despairing cry. He slouched back toward her, per-
turbed, dreading she would retract.
" Do not send it — bring it thyself. Let me take
it from thy hand."
A lump rose in his throat. " I will bring it," he
said brokenly.
The long days of pain grew longer — the summer
472 "INCURABLE "
was coming, harbingered by sunny days that flooded
the wards with golden mockery. The evening Her-
zel brought the Get, Sarah could have read every
word on the parchment plainly, if her eyes had not
been blinded by tears.
She put out her hand toward her husband, groping
for the document he bore. He placed it in her burn-
ing palm. The fingers closed automatically upon it,
then relaxed, and the paper fluttered to the floor.
But Sarah was no longer a wife.
Herzel was glad to hide his burning face by stoop-
ing for the fallen bill of divorcement. He was long
picking it up. When his eyes met hers again, she
had propped herself up in her bed. Two big round
tears trickled down her cheeks, but she received the
parchment calmly and thrust it into her bosom.
" Let it lie there," she said stonily, " there where
thy head hath lain. Blessed be the true Judge."
" Thou art not angry with me, Sarah ? "
" Why should I be angry ? She was right — I am
but a dead woman. Only no one may say Kaddish
for me, no one may pray for the repose of my soul.
I am not angry, Herzel. A wife should light the
Sabbath candles, and throw in the fire the morsel of
dough. But thy home was desolate, there was none
to do these things. Here I have all I need. Now
thou wilt be happy, too."
"Thou hast been a good wife, Sarah," he mur-
mured, touched.
"INCURABLE " 473
" Recall not the past ; we are strangers now," she
said, with recurrent harshness.
" But I may come and see thee — sometimes." He
had stirrings of remorse as the moment of final
parting came.
" Wouldst thou reopen my wounds ? "
" Farewell, then."
He put out his hand timidly; she seized it and
held it passionately.
" Yes, yes, Herzel ! Do not leave me ! Come
and see me here — as a friend, an acquaintance, a
man I used to know. The others are thoughtless —
they forget me — I shall lie here — perhaps the
Angel of Death will forget me, too." Her grasp
tightened till it hurt him acutely.
"Yes, I will come — I will come often," he said,
with a sob of physical pain.
Her clasp loosened, she dropped his hand.
" But not till thou art married," she said.
" Be it so."
" Of course thou must have a ' still wedding.' The
English synagogue will not marry thee."
" The Maggid will marry me."
"Thou wilt show me her Cesubah when thou
comest next ? "
"Yes — I will contrive to get it from her."
A week passed — he brought the marriage cer-
tificate.
Outwardly she was calm. She glanced through
474 "INCURABLE "
it. "God be thanked," she said, and handed it
back. They chatted of indifferent things, of the
doings of the neighbours. When he was going, she
said, " Thou wilt come again ? "
" Yes, I will come again."
" Thou art so good to spend thy time on me thus.
But thy wife — will she not be jealous ?"
He stared, bewildered by her strange, eerie mo-
ments.
" Jealous of thee ? " he murmured.
She took it in its contemptuous sense and her
white lips twitched. But she only said, " Is she
aware thou hast come here?"
He shrugged his shoulders. " Do I know ? I
have not told her."
"Tell her."
" As thou wishest."
There was a pause. Presently the woman spoke.
"Wilt thou not bring her to see me? Then she
will know that thou hast no love left for me — "
He flinched as at a stab. After a painful mo-
ment he said: "Art thou in earnest?"
"I am no marriage-jester. Bring her to me —
will she not come to see an invalid ? It is a viitzvah
(good deed) to visit the sick. It will wipe out her
trespass."
" She shall come."
She came. Sarah stared at her for an instant
with poignant curiosity, then her eyelids drooped to
"INCURABLE " 475
shut out the dazzle of her youth and freshness.
Herzel's wife moved awkwardly and sheepishly.
But she was beautiful — a buxom, comely country
girl from a Russian village, with a swelling bust and
a cheek rosy with health and confusion.
Sarah's breast was racked by a thousand needles.
But she found breath at last.
"God bless — thee, Mrs. — Kretznow," she said
gaspingly.
She took the girl's hand.
" How. good thou art to come and see a sick
creature."
" My husband willed it," the new wife said in dep-
recation. She had a simple, stupid air that did not
seem wholly due to the constraint of the strange
situation.
"Thou wast right to obey. Be good to him, my
child. For three years he waited on me, when I lay
helpless. He has suffered much. Be good to him ! "
With an impulsive movement she drew the girl's
head down to her and kissed her on the lips. Then
with an anguished cry of " Leave me for to-day," she
jerked the blanket over her face and burst into tears.
She heard the couple move hesitatingly away. The
girl's beauty shone on her through the opaque cover-
ings.
" " O God ! " she wailed. " God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, let me die now. For the merits of the
Patriarchs take me soon, take me soon."
476 "INCURABLE "
Her vain passionate prayer, muffled by the bed-
clothes, was wholly drowned by ear-piercing shrieks
from the ward above — screams of agony mingled
with half -articulate accusations of attempted poison-
ing— the familiar paroxysm of the palsied woman
who clung to life.
The thrill passed again through Sister Margaret.
She uplifted her sweet humid eyes.
" Ah, Christ ! " she whispered. " If I could die for
her ! "
XI
THE SABBATH-BREAKER
XI
THE SABBATH-BREAKER
THE moment came near for the Polish centenarian
grandmother to die. From the doctor's statement
it appeared she had only a bad quarter of an hour to
live. Her attack had been sudden, and the grand-
children she loved to scold could not be present.
She had already battled through the great wave of
pain, and was drifting beyond the boundaries of her
earthly Refuge. The nurses, forgetting the trouble
her querulousness and her overweening dietary scru-
ples had cost them, hung over the bed on which
the shrivelled entity lay. They did not know she was
living again through the one great episode of her
life.
Nearly forty years back, when (though already
hard upon seventy and a widow) a Polish village was
all her horizon, she received a letter. It arrived on
the eve of Sabbath on a day of rainy summer. It
was from her little boy — her only boy — who kept
a country inn seven-and-thirty miles away, and had
a family. She opened the letter with feverish anxiety.
Her son — her Kaddish — was the apple of her eye.
479
480 THE SABBATH-BREAKER
The old woman eagerly perused the Hebrew script,
from right to left. Then weakness overcame her
and she nearly fell.
Embedded casually enough in the four pages was a
passage that stood out for her in letters of blood. " I
am not feeling very well lately ; the weather is so
oppressive and the nights are misty. But it is nothing
serious ; my digestion is a little out of order, that's
all." There were roubles for her in the letter, but
she let them fall to the floor unheeded. Panic fear,
travelling quicker than the tardy post of those days,
had brought rumour of a sudden outbreak of cholera
in her son's district. Already alarm for her boy had
surged about her heart all day ; the letter confirmed
her worst apprehensions. Even if the first touch of
the cholera-fiend was not actually on him when he
wrote, still he was by his own confession in that con-
dition in which the disease takes easiest grip. By
this time he was on a bed of sickness — nay, perhaps
on his death-bed, if not dead. Even in those days
the little grandmother had lived beyond the common
span ; she had seen many people die, and knew that
the Angel of Death does not always go about his
work leisurely. In an epidemic his hands are too full
to enable him to devote much attention to each case.
Maternal instinct tugged at her heart-strings, drawing
her toward her boy. The end of the letter seemed
impregnated with special omen — " Come and see me
soon, dear little mother. I shall be unable to get to
THE SABBATH-BREAKER 481
see you for some time." Yes, she must go at once
— who knew but that it would be the last time she
would look upon his face ?
But then came a terrible thought to give her pause.
The Sabbath was just "in" — a moment ago. Driv-
ing, riding, or any manner of journeying was
prohibited during the next twenty-four hours. Fran-
tically she reviewed the situation. Religion permitted
the violation of the Sabbath on one condition — if
life was to be saved. By no stretch of logic could
she delude herself into the belief her son's recovery
hinged upon her presence — nay, analyzing the case
with the cruel remorselessness of a scrupulous con-
science, she saw his very illness was only a plausible
hypothesis. No; to go to him now were beyond
question to profane the Sabbath.
And yet beneath all the reasoning, her conviction
that he was sick unto death, her resolve to set out at
once, never wavered. After an agonizing struggle
she compromised. She could not go by cart — that
would be to make others work into the bargain, and
would moreover involve a financial transaction. She
must walk ! Sinful as it was to transgress the limit
of two thousand yards beyond her village — the dis-
tance fixed by Rabbinical law — there was no help
for it. And of all the forms of travelling, walking
was surely the least sinful. The Holy One, blessed
be He, would know she did not mean to work ; per-
haps in His mercy He would make allowance for an
482 THE SABBATH-BREAKER
old woman who had never profaned His rest-day
before.
And so, that very evening, having made a hasty
meal, and lodged the precious letter in her bosom,
the little grandmother girded up her loins to walk
the seven-and-thirty miles. No staff took she with
her, for to carry such came under the Talmudical
definition of work. Neither could she carry an um-
brella, though it was a season of rain. Mile after
mile she strode briskly on, toward that pallid face
that lay so far beyond the horizon, and yet ever
shone before her eyes like a guiding star. " I am
coming, my lamb," she muttered. "The little mother
is on the way."
It was a muggy night. The sky, flushed with a
weird, hectic glamour, seemed to hang over the earth
like a pall. The trees that lined the roadway were
shrouded in a draggling vapour. At midnight the
mist blotted out the stars. But the little grandmother
knew the road ran straight. All night she walked
through the forest, fearless as Una, meeting neither
man nor beast, though the wolf and the bear haunted
its recesses, and snakes lurked in the bushes. But
only the innocent squirrels darted across her path.
The morning found her spent, and almost lame.
But she walked on. Almost half the journey was
yet to do.
She had nothing to eat with her; food, too, was
an illegal burden, nor could she buy any on the
THE SABBATH-BREAKER 483
holy day. She said her Sabbath morning prayer
walking, hoping God would forgive the disrespect.
The recital gave her partial oblivion of her pains.
As she passed through a village the dreadful rumour
of cholera was confirmed ; it gave wings to her feet
for ten minutes, then bodily weakness was stronger
than everything else, and she had to lean against
the hedges on the outskirts of the village. It was
nearly noon. A passing beggar gave her a piece
of bread. Fortunately it was unbuttered, so she
could eat it with only minor qualms lest it had
touched any unclean thing. She resumed her jour-
ney, but the rest had only made her feet move more
painfully and reluctantly. She would have liked
to bathe them in a brook, but that, too, was for-
bidden. She took the letter from her bosom and
reperused it, and whipped up her flagging strength
with a cry of "Courage, my lamb! the little mother
is on the way." Then the leaden clouds melted into
sharp lines of rain, which beat into her face, refresh-
ing her for the first few moments, but soon wetting
her to the skin, making her sopped garments a
heavier burden, and reducing the pathway to mud,
that clogged still further her feeble footsteps. In
the teeth of the wind and the driving shower she
limped on. A fresh anxiety consumed her now —
would she have strength to hold out? Every mo-
ment her pace lessened, she was moving like a snail.
And the slower she went the more vivid grew her
484 THE SABBATH-BREAKER
prescience of what awaited her at the journey's end.
Would she even hear his dying word ? Perhaps —
terrible thought ! — she would only be in time to
look upon his dead face ! Mayhap that was how
God would punish her for her desecration of the
holy day. " Take heart, my lamb ! " she wailed.
" Do not die yet. The little mother comes."
The rain stopped. The sun came out, hot and
fierce, and dried her hands and face, then made
them stream again with perspiration. Every inch
won was torture now, but the brave feet toiled on.
Bruised and swollen and crippled, they toiled on.
There was a dying voice — very far off yet, alas ! —
that called to her, and as she dragged herself along,
she replied : " I am coming, my lamb. Take heart !
the little mother is on the way. Courage ! I shall
look upon thy face, I shall find thee alive."
Once a wagoner observed her plight and offered
her a lift, but she shook her head steadfastly. The
endless afternoon wore on — she crawled along the
forest-way, stumbling every now and then from
sheer faintness, and tearing her hands and face in
the brambles of the roadside. At last the cruel sun
waned, and reeking mists rose from the forest pools.
And still the long miles stretched away, and still
she plodded on, torpid from over-exhaustion, scarcely
conscious, and taking each step only because she
had taken the preceding. From time to time her
lips mumbled : " Take heart, my lamb ! I am com-
THE SABBATH-BREAKER 485
ing." The Sabbath was "out" ere, broken and
bleeding, and all but swooning, the little grand-
mother crawled up to her son's inn, on the border
of the forest. Her heart was cold with fatal fore-
boding. There was none of the usual Saturday
night litter of Polish peasantry about the door. The
sound of many voices weirdly intoning a Hebrew
hymn floated out into the night. A man in a caftan
opened the door, and mechanically raised his fore-
finger to bid her enter without noise. The little
grandmother saw into the room behind. Her daugh-
ter-in-law and her grandchildren were seated on the
floor — the seat of mourners.
" Blessed be the true Judge ! " she said, and rent
the skirt of her dress. " When did he die ? "
" Yesterday. We had to bury him hastily ere the
Sabbath came in."
The little grandmother lifted up her quavering
voice, and joined the hymn, " I will sing a new song
unto Thee, O God ; upon a harp of ten strings will
I sing praises unto Thee."
******
The nurses could not understand what sudden in-
flow of strength and impulse raised the mummified
figure into a sitting posture. The little grandmother
thrust a shrivelled claw into her peaked, shrunken
bosom, and drew out a paper, crumpled and yellow
as herself, covered with strange crabbed hieroglyphics,
whose hue had long since faded. She held it close
486 THE SABBATH-BREAKER
to her bleared eyes — a beautiful light came into
them, and illumined the million-puckered face. The
lips moved faintly ; " I am coming, my lamb," she
mumbled. " Courage ! The little mother is on the
way. I shall look on thy face. I shall find thee
alive."
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